Money Better Spent Than Warehousing Rehabilitated Prisoners

4/26/2025

The Virginia General Assembly and JLARC (the Joint Legislative and Review Commission) would do well to take a new and comprehensive look at the handling of OLD LAW prisoners by the Virginia Parole Board as a common sense solution to it's current budget crisis. Amid financial shortfalls the parole system can be better utilized to help out with today's sobering reality. The current no parole policy that's headed up by Board Chairperson Patricia West is only adding to the expenditures and the straining of resources of Virginia's prison system.

Lost in the fact of the Department of Corrections $1.6 billion budget is that Virginia houses nearly 31,000 prisoners which per capita is more than any other state in the US. This is twice the amount of the States of New Jersey and Washington which confine only half as many prisoners. The money that's being spent to warehouse rehabilitated OLD LAW prisoners can be better spent on the everyday concerns of taxpaying citizens that have to pay for child care, health insurance, skyrocketing rents and utilities and other financial concerns.

The VDOC estimates that it costs about $42,000 a year to keep someone in prison, yet those costs rise steeply as the prisoner ages. In comparison, the yearly cost to monitor someone on parole is roughly $1,600 annually. By paroling prisoners at the average rate of most states, it will save the taxpayers of Virginia about half a billion dollars.

Right now, at least two to three thousand OLD LAW and GERIATRIC eligible inmates are seemingly ready and fit according to the Boards criteria for being suitable for release. It begs the question, why are we holding onto them? These are elderly men and women who are well beyond their years of criminal activity. They're growing old inside the system, along with their burdening, rising medical expenses, that's crippling the state budget. Most have served well over 30-40 plus years without a second chance and would've been paroled or phased out of other prison systems long ago.

OLD LAW prisoners represent the very high end of what it cost taxpayers to keep someone in prison and yet they represent the least of those who pose a threat to society.

They're old, they've aged out of criminal behavior and most have earned a second chance at freedom. More important is that the average annual medical expense can exceed $70 to $80 thousand dollars for everyone of these old timers. The hundreds of millions of dollars saved by purging the rolls of these men and women would offset the current freezes in hiring and pay raises for correctional employees across the Commonwealth as well.

Most OLD LAW prisoners are deserving of a second chance and the odds of them committing more crimes is extremely low versus the savings lawmakers in Virginia can then better allocate to educational, environmental, as well as other public safety priorities.

Michael S. Hairston #1064200

Buckingham C. C.