HD17 - Virginia Correctional Enterprises


Executive Summary:
House Bill 263 amended § 53.1-48 in the 2012 General Assembly session. Information provided in this report is based on data for four months beginning July 1, 2012 through October 31, 2012. The bill contained an enactment clause directing the Director of the Department of General Services (DGS) and the Director of the Department of Corrections (DOC) to report to the Governor and General Assembly on the impact of the provisions of this act, including any cost savings to the Commonwealth, any efficiencies realized, and the impact on prisoner re-entry and safety in correctional institutions. Specifically, the enactment clause of the legislation states:


“…the Director of the Department of General Services and the Director of the Department of Corrections shall report to the Governor and the General Assembly on the impact of the implementation of the provisions of this act, including any cost savings to the Commonwealth, any efficiencies realized, and the impact on prisoner re-entry and safety in correctional institutions. The Departments may include in the report recommendations for improvement of the process that is the subject of this act.”

The Department of Corrections has not seen an impact on safety in its facilities; however, the number of inmates working has decreased since the same time period last year. The decrease is not impacted by the change in legislation. The laundries at Virginia Correctional Center for Women and Greensville Correctional Center were shuttered during this time frame, as a new laundry requiring fewer offenders was brought on line at Sussex II State Prison. Also the number of offenders working through VCE is impacted by other prison programming.

Recommendation

The Department of Corrections and Virginia Correctional Enterprises recommend continuing the analysis and capturing data for another year. The four month time period was too short to accurately identify trends of any substantive nature. During fiscal year ’14 VCE will maintain files that will possibly identify trends related to this matter including job preparedness of inmates and the reduction of workforce.