Virginia Department of Corrections
| Virginia Department of Corrections | |
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| Abbreviation | VADOC |
Virginia Department of Corrections Logo
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Uniform patch for the Virginia Department of Corrections
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| Agency overview | |
| Formed | late 1700s |
| Employees | 11,769 |
| Annual budget | $1,048,521,085 |
| Legal personality | Governmental: Government agency |
| Jurisdictional structure | |
| Operations jurisdiction* | State of Virginia, USA |
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| Map of Virginia Department of Corrections's jurisdiction. | |
| Size | 42,774 square miles (110,780 km2) |
| Population | 8,096,604 (2011 census) |
| General nature | |
| Operational structure | |
| Headquarters | Richmond, Virginia |
| Elected officer responsible | Brian Moran, Secretary of Public Safety |
| Agency executive | Harold Clarke, Director |
| Facilities | |
| Facilities and Offices | 100 |
| Website | |
| VADOC Website | |
| Footnotes | |
| * Divisional agency: Division of the country, over which the agency has usual operational jurisdiction. | |
The Virginia Department of Corrections (VADOC) is the government agency responsible for operating prisons and correctional facilities in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. The agency is fully accredited by the American Correctional Association and is one of the oldest functioning correctional agencies in the United States. Its headquarters is located in the state capital of Richmond.
From the time of the first settlement at Jamestown to the relocation of the state capital to Richmond in the late 18th Century, Virginia relied upon corporal and capital punishment as its penal measures. Gradually, Virginia began to use small county jails for sentences of confinement.
After the Revolutionary War, Virginia Governor Thomas Jefferson began to urge the state to construct a "penitentiary house." At that time, penitentiary houses were then beginning being used throughout Europe to confine and reform criminals. However, for more than a decade, the Virginia General Assembly ignored Jefferson's ideas.
In 1796, a wave of reform swept the General Assembly of Virginia, and the famous British-American architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe, (1764-1820), (later Architect of the Capitol) was hired to design a penitentiary house for the newly formed Virginia Department of Welfare and Institutions. Latrobe's facility was constructed on a site outside of Richmond overlooking the James River. The facility, which received its first prisoners in 1800 and was completed (with using prison labor) in 1804, (earlier than the current oldest state prison in America, the still standing Eastern State Penitentiary (1829-1971) in Philadelphia and seven years before the neighboring Maryland Penitentiary (now Metropolitan Transitional Center and centerpiece of an extensive corrections complex) began in downtown Baltimore) was known by generations of Virginians as the "Virginia State Penitentiary" or "The Pen." The structure later burned and was torn down in 1905. A new facility was built and operated continuously afterwards until it too was demolished in 1992. In 1896, a penal farm operation (James River Correctional Center) was established in Goochland County for "miscreants and the infirm." This facility closed April 1, 2011, but the James River Work Center continues to operate in that same location today.
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Wikipedia