An ignoble end
The regional jail was deadly. Its closure should be welcomed.
The Hampton Roads Regional Jail in Portsmouth formally closed this week. Good riddance. What began 26 years ago as a well-intentioned experiment by area cities in sharing the cost for operating a detention facility devolved over the years into a dangerous, and often deadly, environment for inmates as well as the dwindling number of officers charged with keeping order. The facility was a blight on a region that should welcome its closure.
Opened in 1998, the HRRJ was envisioned as a way for four cities — Norfolk, Portsmouth, Newport News and Hampton — to address overcrowding in their jail facilities and share the costs of housing inmates assigned there. Chesapeake joined after the facility opened.
The jail had a capacity of 1,300 inmates, including dedicated space for female prisoners as well as those with profound and chronic health concerns. It became the place where member cities shipped their sickest inmates, who are often the most expensive to care for.
That meant the expense of operating the HRRJ grew, but the five cities demonstrated a reluctance to provide additional funding for the facility. From the cities’ perspective, the whole point was do this on the cheap. No matter that neglect resulted in severe staffing shortages and unsafe conditions for inmates and officers alike.
Between 2008 and 2021, at least 53 inmates died at the HRRJ, making it the deadliest jail in Virginia and one of the deadliest in the nation. While some of those deaths were the result of terminal illnesses — again, cities sent their sickest inmates there — others reflected profound
problems in the facility’s operations.
The awful death of Jamycheal Mitchell is one example.
The 24-year-old Portsmouth resident with a history of mental illness ended up at the regional jail in 2015 following his arrest for shoplifting a Mountain Dew, a Snickers bar and a Zebra Cake — totaling $5.05 — from a convenience store. Misplaced transfer orders meant he remained there for 100 days, during which he lost 46 pounds.
Mitchell died on Aug. 19, 2015, in a cell smeared with feces and soaked in urine. The state medical examiner concluded he died of heart failure and “wasting syndrome,” defined as extreme and sudden weight loss, which prompted a flurry of investigations by state and federal authorities.
Mitchell’s death forced the commonwealth to take a hard look at mental health care for inmates, many of whom might not be behind bars had they received proper treatment and many of whom would be better served in psychiatric facilities.
It also led to the jail operating under a consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice after the DOJ found conditions there had violated the Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Staffing shortages proliferated; at one point 100 of the HRRJ’s 300 officer positions were vacant. It didn’t help that the facility had a revolving door in the superintendent’s office, with seven people serving as in that role or as an interim superintendent between 2016 and 2021. At a time when the HRRJ desperately needed a steady hand on the wheel, a rotating cast of leaders made that impossible.
The jail lost its accreditation through the American Correctional Association, and sheriffs in Portsmouth, Norfolk and Chesapeake stopped sending inmates to the facility due to deteriorating conditions. At that point, the writing was on the wall.
In 2021, state Jail Review Committee, which operates under the Board of Local and Regional Jails, recommended the HRRJ be closed 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.”
The incarcerated deserve to be treated with dignity. The Constitution mandates it. But the HRRJ consistently failed to meet this basic responsibility. By failing to protect and care for the sick, weak and neglected souls housed there, the regional jail was a stain on our region and a costly liability for its cities. Its closure brings a welcome end to an ugly, lamentable chapter.