Starting on September 1, 2025, prisons in the western region—including Red Onion (Wise Co.), Wallens Ridge (Wise Co.), Keen Mountain (Buchanan Co.), and River North (Grayson Co.)—began enforcing new collective punishment rules. Entire pods are now losing visits, phone calls, commissary, and even personal property like TVs and tablets when just one person is accused of a violation.

These punishments directly contradict VADOC’s own Operating Procedure 861.1, which requires discipline to be individual, post-conviction, and time-limited. Instead, they are punishing compliant people, inflaming tensions, and blocking legal communication. This crackdown has already driven people to desperate protest—including fires at River North and a hunger strike on Pod A-6 at Red Onion, where people report being gassed and having their water shut off.

We are calling on Department of Corrections leadership, the Governor’s Office, oversight bodies, and the General Assembly to act: rescind collective punishments, restore property and privileges to people without individual convictions, publish all “temporary security suspension” memos, and hold public hearings on OP 861.1 compliance with legislation to ban collective punishment outright. After you send your letter, look in the thank-you section for more links to take further action.