If we want to understand what is happening in West Virginia jails and prisons, we must listen to the people inside them. The Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation (DCR) has taken a step in that direction.
On Monday, the agency released a new policy that allows people behind bars to submit their grievances electronically. A grievance is a formal, written complaint made to DCR management about unfair treatment or some other wrong experienced behind bars.
Grievances can cover every aspect of a person’s life inside a facility: neglectful medical care; rotten or spoiled food; denial of hygiene supplies or menstrual products; broken toilets and showers; and more. Some grievances may report crimes like physical or sexual assault, or violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act or Prison Rape Elimination Act.
For years, DCR has required people to submit paper grievances directly to jail and prison employees in a complex process that can resemble a game of chutes and ladders. There are time limits, paper limits, and three levels of review before the grievance is considered complete. Along the way, a grievance can be rejected on technicalities because a person folded the form, used more than one staple, wrote on the back of a paper, or submitted a paper with marks or smudges.
The complexity of DCR’s grievance process is likely by design, thanks to a Clinton-era federal law intended to make it harder for incarcerated people to file and to win civil rights cases. The Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) passed with overwhelming support in 1996, during the same period in which policymakers made deliberate decisions to increase the number of people behind bars.
The PLRA created multiple tripwires for incarcerated people attempting to litigate their civil rights in federal court: mandatory filing fees, regardless of poverty; compensation limits to deter lawyers from taking on civil rights cases; curbs on court oversight of jails or prisons; and more.
The most effective block has been the policy that allows civil rights lawsuits to be dismissed if the incarcerated person did not “exhaust” or complete the grievance process through the last level of review.
Notably, the rules and steps of the grievance process are created by the same jails and prisons that would be the target of any civil rights claims.
DCR gets to build the obstacle course incarcerated people must complete to file a civil rights claim against DCR. The more complicated the grievance process, the more likely people will not meet the PLRA’s exhaustion requirement.
Over the last two years, the WVCBP has had dozens of conversations with people behind bars, their loved ones, former jail staff, and people who provide legal or social services to those incarcerated. When asked about the grievance process, we heard a lot of the same things.
The spouse of a person in prison summed up the biggest barrier: fear of retaliation. “I think sometimes people are afraid to use it, because you get retaliated against. You get moved to another dorm, or you get your stuff searched.”
A person who spent three weeks in a regional jail recalled how a correctional officer threatened another jail resident with a discipline report if they filed a grievance.
| What Authoritarianism Sounds Like For a brief time in 2020, people in jail could submit grievances through computer kiosks. DCR disclosed some of these grievances filed by people who later died in custody at the state’s deadliest jail, Southern Regional Jail (SRJ). These few records speak volumes about how jail staff have historically responded to issues raised by people under their control. In one example, a person protested mass punishment against his jail pod after staff withheld hygiene and commissary items purchased by the pod residents. The person demanded a copy of the grievance and wrote of their intent to write to Charleston about other incidents at SRJ. Mike Francis, the jail superintendent who later resigned following several deaths at SRJ, responded with a series of threats: “The Facility does NOT have to provide commissary AT ALL. If that is what you want LET ME KNOW. The next time I come into [redacted] and see the amount of windows covered that I did Wednesday, You will not ONLY lose commissary for the week, but I will take out the TV and SHUT down ALL PHONES Also THREATENING a Superintendent will place you in AD SEG.” Before closing the grievance in the system, Francis wrote to the person who later died in custody, “You will follow the rules of the Facility or you will face consequences.” |
Others we spoke to stressed the futility of filing paper grievances. One person told us, “I filed grievances, and nothing ever got done. I don’t think they even read it.” Several people believed paper grievances were simply thrown away by staff.
A recent federal case backed this up.
In October 2023, a federal magistrate issued an opinion in a class-action lawsuit against DCR regarding conditions at Southern Regional Jail. In unusually scathing language, the judge described how DCR had failed to preserve paper grievances made prior to pre-2022 despite internal policies that required preservation. The judge wrote:
“Not a single WVDCR witness could explain how this evidence was lost or where it went. And each of those witnesses had served or presently serve in the highest positions of authority over SRJ. That these Defendants would ask this Court to believe that entire file cabinets of evidence disappeared without a trace is an ask too far. To do so, the Court would have to disregard all logic and reason to take these Defendants at their word. The ONLY logical explanation for the loss of this evidence, is that it was intentionally destroyed – and this logical explanation has been provided to this Court through an inmate’s affidavit who witnessed such events.”
The state agreed to a $4 million settlement days later.
That case revealed how a vulnerable paper grievance system could obscure conditions in a jail where at least 27 people died over a three-year period.
For a system that controls the lives of roughly 10,000 people on any given day, electronic grievances are the obvious policy. And because every adult and child incarcerated in West Virginia is issued a tablet, it is also the easier policy.
This development could not have come at a better time. Just last week, a correctional officer at South Central Regional Jail was arrested and charged with imposing sexual acts on an incarcerated person. According to the complaint, the investigation started when an incarcerated person submitted a complaint electronically through a tablet.
One can expect that electronic grievances will be particularly useful regarding accountability in state jails. (Jails incarcerate people who are presumed innocent and awaiting trial, as well as those sentenced for misdemeanor convictions. By contrast, prisons incarcerate people convicted of felony offenses, which carry sentences longer than one year.)
Because of courts’ expansive use of money bail and pretrial detention, the regional jails house tens of thousands more people every year than the state’s prison system. In the past year, West Virginia’s 10 regional jails processed 35,887 admissions and 33,827 releases. The same year, the state’s 13 prison facilities admitted 2,539 people and released 2,884 people.
Jails and prisons have long been shielded from public view. The one legislative committee dedicated to jail oversight was scheduled to meet on December 10th, but then cancelled its meeting. (In spite of last week’s news that a correctional officer was accused of sexual abuse inside a Charleston jail.)
You can help change this. If you know someone behind bars who is experiencing mistreatment or harmful conditions, encourage them to use the electronic grievance system. It only works if we work it. Our loved ones inside should file their grievances electronically, make sure to complete the entire process, and do so as soon as possible.
If you get stuck, or if you want to help WVCBP track what’s going on inside, please visit the Community Collaborative Council or contact me directly at swhitaker@wvpolicy.org.
