Virginia prisoners burn themselves to protest conditions

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Virginia’s Black Legislative Caucus is calling on the governor and the state department of corrections to initiate an independent investigation into allegations of abuse and poor conditions at a supermax state prison.

At least six inmates at Red Onion State Prison in western Virginia have allegedly burned themselves in protest of what they call abuse and “intolerable” living conditions, according to Kevin “Rashid” Johnson, an inmate at Red Onion, who broke the story in October via Prison Radio, a news outlet that focuses on prisoners’ stories.

ohnson said that two cellmates set themselves ablaze in September, citing “racism and abuses.” Johnson added, “the hard and inhumane conditions at Red Onion were so intolerable that he and others were setting themselves on fire in desperate attempts to be transferred away from the prison.”

Johnson recalled that one of the men, Ekong Eshiet, said his was not an act of protest but an “act of desperation.”

Another prisoner alleged that he had not received care for chronic heart diseases. That prisoner, Charles Coleman, “suffered repeated physical, verbal and psychological abuse and denied treatment by Red Onion guards and medical staff,” Johnson said.

According to Christian Martinez, Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s press secretary, the men burned themselves using improvised devices that were created by tampering with electrical outlets. They were treated for electrical burns and cleared to return to the facility.

The director of the Virginia Department of Corrections, Chad Dotson, in a statement Wednesday called the stories coming out of Red Onion “bad-faith efforts to try to score cheap political points by advocacy groups who pursue prison abolition and policies that would make Virginians less safe.”

Youngkin said at a news conference Tuesday that he was aware of six cases in 2024 of inmates at Red Onion burning themselves.

he burns “have been fully investigated by our Department of Corrections. And I do think that part of the investigation is to understand how they’ve happened and why they’ve happened. We have been in conversations with the Department of Corrections about these circumstances,” Youngkin said.

Youngkin did not address the reports of poor treatment of inmates and dire living conditions at Red Onion.

The Virginia Legislative Black Caucus urged further investigation into conditions at the prison in a post Tuesday on X. Ceci Cain, the caucus’ legislative director, told NBC News that while at least six men had self-immolated since September, as many as 12 have harmed themselves in this manner since May 2023.

In a statement, the caucus cited conditions that it said inmates have shared in the past: “People who have been incarcerated at Red Onion State Prison describe being regularly subjected to racial and physical abuse from correctional officers, medical neglect including the withholding of medicine, excessive stays in solitary confinement with one report of 600 consecutive days, inedible food having been covered in maggots and officers’ spit, and violent dog attacks.”

Dotson, the corrections director, said the department had invited legislators to visit Red Onion and other state facilities to observe the conditions themselves. Dotson also said all six of the inmates who recently burned themselves have a history of self harm.

In June, Johnson wrote in The Virginia Defender that he and six other prisoners went on a hunger strike in December 2023 to protest the use of solitary confinement at Red Onion. The prison has also been probed over the years by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International for alleged violations of human rights.

If you treat people inhumanely that is how they will act. If you treat inmates with dignity they will act accordingly. I feel the focus of incarceration should be rehabilitation not punishment.

So they committed inhumane acts against themselves to protest the alleged inhuman acts committed against them.

It makes no sense to me.