NEWS & BLOG

Virginia made historic strides toward reforming our criminal legal system in 2020 and 2021, but there is still much to do. In 2022 and 2023, we have protected that progress. We want to know from legislative candidates what they will do in 2024 and beyond to keep pushing to reduce the harms caused by Virginia’s criminal legal system.

In April, legislators returned to Richmond for the one-day reconvened session, to address the governor’s recommended changes to and vetoes of legislation. Except for the budget, which likely won’t be finalized until after the June 20 legislative primaries, we can now summarize what the General Assembly accomplished in 2023 in criminal law. The new laws, which take effect July 1 unless otherwise noted, fall into seven categories…

We encourage you to protect the lives, liberty, and interests of the people you represent, not the predatory private companies whose technology invades our private lives and pushes Virginia further into a police state. We call on you to strongly oppose SB 1165 and HB 1437. There is still time to stop this disturbing, unnecessary proposal.

I have remained committed to one vision: ending the structural racism and classism that forms the foundation of Virginia’s criminal legal system. I’m honored to take the reins at Justice Forward Virginia.

Virginia voters have experienced the positive impacts of criminal justice reforms and they are ready to see public safety funding be spent proactively on strengthening their communities rather than incarcerating even more residents. Virginia-based advocates Sheba Williams, Executive Director of Nolef Turns, Brad Haywood, Arlington County and City of Falls Church Chief Public Defender, Rob Poggenklass, Executive Director of Justice Forward Virginia, and Valerie Slater, Executive Director of RISE for Youth agree that evidence-informed criminal justice reforms keep communities safe.

The Need for a Second Look in Virginia—A February 2022 report by the nonpartisan Justice Policy Institute—analyzes Virginia’s heavy-handed reliance on lengthy prison sentences and reveals how extreme sentences play a significant role in our mass incarceration crisis and surging geriatric prison population. The number of people in Virginia’s prison system, which declined for the first time in 2009 after four decades of growth, has plateaued in recent years and remains plagued with dysfunction that keeps people locked up for extremely long sentences, disproportionately impacting Black families, and costing Virginia taxpayers a BILLION dollars a year.

Nothing embodies the public defender experience quite like a rousing game of “Oh, you think that’s bad?” This is a time-honored tradition where defenders from different jurisdictions take turns one-upping each other with the arcane and draconian criminal laws and procedures that endanger the freedom and lives of the people they represent, in the various courthouses where they practice.

2021 was a tumultuous year in so many ways. The murder of George Floyd, and the shock so many of us felt as we watched videos of police abusing Americans, opened people’s eyes to the excesses of the criminal justice system. In Virginia, dedicated state-level advocacy and some courageous legislators created a unique opportunity. The result was the most meaningful and comprehensive changes to Virginia’s criminal justice system in its history

Until 2020, the United States had never truly reckoned with the legacy of racism inherited by its criminal legal system. Then, all at once, a reckoning was unavoidable. In nine minutes and 29 seconds caught on video, the life of a Black man, George Floyd, was brutally extinguished by a police officer who rejected Floyd’s right even to the breath in his lungs.