In 2015, a 24-year-old Portsmouth man with a history of mental illness was arrested for stealing $5 in snacks from a convenience store. He spent 100 days at the Hampton Roads Regional Jail, losing 46 pounds during his detention before succumbing to heart failure and “wasting syndrome,” defined as extreme and sudden weight loss.
That tragedy should have spelled the end of the HRRJ, a correctional facility with the highest death rate in Virginia that is a danger to both officers and inmates alike. Though belated, Hampton Roads should cheer its impending closure and welcome the opportunity to forge a better, more humane path for the region’s correctional needs.
A 1937 report by the Virginia Legislative Jail Commission called the commonwealth’s correctional system “the most peculiar one in the nation” due to different jurisdictions sharing responsibility for building and operating facilities as well as the care of the inmates.
The HRRJ is a perfect example of that. Opened in 1998, the facility was developed through a partnership of Norfolk, Portsmouth, Newport News and Hampton to address overcrowding in those cities’ jails. Chesapeake joined the consortium after its establishment.
The HRRJ was also designed to house inmates with chronic illnesses and other infirmities, with member cities sharing the expense of health care and mental health services. But as those costs grew, the cities proved reluctant to increase spending, leading to severe staffing shortages and dangerous conditions for inmates.
Between 2008 and 2021, at least 53 inmates died while housed at the HRRJ, the highest number of inmate deaths of any facility in Virginia. Those numbers are somewhat skewed owing to the fact that cities sent their sickest inmates there, but some of those deaths suggested something far more troubling at work.
Among these, the 2015 death of Jamycheal Mitchell, described above, stands out. Following his arrest, he was ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation and was housed at the HRRJ while awaiting an open bed at Eastern State Hospital in Williamsburg. The initial transfer order wasn’t received and a second one, sent two months later, was stuffed in a desk drawer and forgotten.
So was Mitchell. He remained in the regional jail for 100 days, a period in which he lost 46 pounds, before he died. He was found unresponsive in a cell smeared with feces and soaked in urine.
The tragedy launched several investigations, including a civil rights investigation that resulted in the jail operating under a consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice. It also put a spotlight on Virginia’s tattered mental health system and the need to provide effective mental health services to inmates across the commonwealth, but particularly at the HRRJ.
In the ensuing years, the HRRJ has been roiled by staffing shortages — at one point 100 of the facility’s 300 officer positions were vacant — amid arguments among members of the jail’s governing board about paying for staff and rising inmate costs. Deteriorating conditions at the jail prompted the sheriffs of Norfolk and Chesapeake to stop sending inmates there.
In 2021, state Jail Review Committee, which reports to the Board of Local and Regional Jails, recommended shuttering the HRRJ due to “an egregious lack of concern for the health and safety of all who enter” and “a significant public safety threat to inmates and correctional officers.”
At last, that day draws close.
According to an email first obtained by Channel 13 News from Portsmouth Sheriff Michael Moore to the Portsmouth City Council, the jail’s governing board will announce next month that the jail will close. The email did not specify a timeline, but Moore called for it to replace the city jail.
The HRRJ may have started as a noble experiment in shared corrections costs, but it became a liability for member communities and a danger to both inmates and officers. While there is an avenue for cities to again seek a partnership to lower costs for taxpayers, it must learn from the many mistakes at the HRRJ because those errors must not be repeated.
