'We have to do something with Riverside': Legislators, advocates want immediate improvements

RICHMOND – Kevin Wyatt died earlier this year inside a cell at Riverside Regional Jail. The cause of death was an overdose of cocaine and fentanyl that his mother said came from within the walls of the Prince George County facility.

“My son told me, ‘Mom, why do you have me locked up? There’s drugs in jail,’” Denise Gunn said. “’I get more drugs in jail and better drugs in jail than I can get on the street and at a cheaper price.’”

“You know, we have to do something with Riverside. Not only my family member but other people’s family members are dying every day at Riverside.”

The Chester resident was not alone in her assessment. Libbie Roberts and Austin Wells also spoke of deplorable treatment of Riverside’s jail population, particularly those there due to substance-abuse problems. Wells, a 27-year-old Petersburg resident, has been in Riverside every year since he was 18, and he said his incarceration there fed what he called “a full-blown drug habit” more than what he could have done if he were not in jail.

“Riverside is just as easy to find drugs in as it is if I was on the streets,” Wells said.

Roberts – a self-described “frequent flier at Riverside from 2015 until 2018” -- suffers from bilateral blood clots in her lungs because of her abuse. A blood thinner she had been put on to reduce the clots caused blood to seep through her skin during one stint in jail and had completely soaked her shirt. She told the guard on duty at the time that she needed medical assistance, and she recalled the response she got.

“They told me to go sit by my door because it was laundry time, and they would call medical and they would get me assistance at their earliest convenience,” Roberts said. “This is just one of many stories you hear about Riverside.”

A ‘broken’ model

Gunn, Wells and Roberts were among speakers Monday morning at a news conference inside Richmond’s General Assembly Building. They were flanked by delegates and state senators who are calling on the Riverside Regional Jail Authority board to hire a superintendent to turn the facility from a “prison” where hardened criminals reside long-term to a “jail” that offers rehabilitation services to its residents, all of whom are put behind bars for shorter periods of up to a year tops.

Eighteen Riverside inmates died in the jail between 2020 and 2022, according to statistics from the state Board of Local and Regional Jails. In December 2022, the jail was cited by the board for five violations of providing essential conditions and services, including lax security protocols, substandard medical care, and inadequate programs covering medication-assisted therapy and suicide prevention.

Del. Carrie Coyner, R-Chesterfield County, and Sen. Lashrecse Aird, D-Petersburg, are leading a bipartisan coalition of state legislators who say Riverside’s shortcomings are a microcosm of what is going on inside Virginial’s regional jails.

“The regional-jail model is a broken one,” Coyner said.

'They are accountable to us'

Riverside, a 1,500-bed facility located off River Road in Prince George County, is operated by a board made up of city and county executives from the seven localities the jail serves – the cities of Colonial Heights, Hopewell and Petersburg; and the counties of Charles City, Chesterfield, Prince George and Surry. That board, currently chaired by Petersburg City Manager March Altman, is looking for a new jail superintendent.

Legislators and advocates used Monday’s news conference not just as a call for transparency in the hiring of a superintendent but also to put the entire regional-jail system on notice that changes need to be made and made immediately.

“They are accountable to us,” Aird said of the RRJ board. “They are accountable to our community.”

Coyner noted the makeup of that board, saying there are “some very fiscally distressed localities” represented on it. Poor financial decisions made within those localities are reflected in the financial decisions the RRJ board in operating it.

“If you look at their own running of their own communities, they have a level of distress and chaos in them,” Coyner said. “It’s very difficult to manage a place and a board if your own houses aren’t in order in all areas.

“You have to be willing to manage the regional jail as if it was your own, and that has not happened historically.”

That, Aird added, “emphasizes the immediate need to revisit the restructure of the Riverside Regional Jail, right?”

What to look for in next leader

Aird and Coyner criticized the lack of transparency the RRJ board gave to the hiring of the next superintendent. A job posting that closed May 17 directed applicants to find out “more detailed job information” by looking at a document from four years ago.

Coyner contrasted that to the search for Chesterfield’s next school superintendent. While a jail superintendent and school superintendent are completely different jobs, they do have a link in that both need to be run by people with a focus on the community they serve, she said.

Where the school system is seeking community input on what residents want to see in their next school leader, “the only thing our regional jail board put out is a job posting that is now closed.

“We have an obligation to look for and search for and pay a salary that will bring someone in that is responsible for ensuring that our neighbors who were there temporarily received the rehabilitation they need so they can live a full life back in all of our communities,” Coyner added.

“There is no reason that an institution should be a death sentence when it is intended to be a rehabilitation environment and opportunity,” Aird said. “Not for it to be a permanent state for the rest of your life, but a stop along the way.”

The Progress-Index reached out to Riverside Regional Jail for a comment on the statements made in Monday’s news conference. That request has yet to be answered.

Bill Atkinson (he/him/his) is an award-winning journalist who covers breaking news, government and politics. Reach him at batkinson@progress-index.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @BAtkinson_PI.

This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: Deplorable conditions called out at central Virginia regional jail