Transparency News, 11/4/21

Over half of the major institutional jails run by the Virginia Department of Corrections are overcrowded, according to documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. On average, the facilities are at 140% of their design capacity. However, the facilities can still operate at a higher capacity. All but one of the state’s eight field units are also over design capacity. The only one that is not is the Central Virginia Correctional Unit. None of the facilities have exceeded operational capacity. The DOC’s four work centers and two institution hospitals have inmate numbers below their design capacity. Overcrowding at DOC facilities has led the department to leave prisoners it should be taking at local and regional facilities, such as the Rockingham County Jail and Middle River Regional Jail. By October, there was an average of 4,538 inmates per month in local facilities who should have been in the care of the DOC, according to data provided through the Freedom of Information Act request.
Daily News Record

Del. Chris Hurst, a Democrat from Montgomery County, tried to argue with a police officer who stopped him Monday evening after the woman he was with had been seen tampering with campaign signs of Hurst’s Republican challenger Jason Ballard in Radford, the officer’s incident report and bodycam footage show. Hurst at first denied being involved, but then defended his actions as a prank.  The footage and video was obtained in a Freedom of Information Act request from Radford City Police by a Republican activist and confirmed by Cardinal News. 
Cardinal News

 

Oklahoma University was awarded Freedom of Information Oklahoma’s Black Hole Award for the second time in three yearsTuesday, being designated as an institution that has notably “thwarted the free flow of information.” After selecting the OU Board of Regents as the Black Hole recipient in 2019 following the secretive selection of former OU President James Gallogly, and the appointment of Harroz as Gallogly’s interim successor in a six-hour meeting that took place almost entirely in executive session and ended just before 2 a.m., OU received the award again this year alongside the Oklahoma State Department of Health. Andy Moore, FOI Oklahoma’s executive director, told The Daily the group’s awards committee met in September to determine this year’s award recipients. OU was selected primarily based on the university’s continued legal fight to withhold the Jones Day report — a collection of documents detailing the investigation of misreported donorship numbers and sexual misconduct allegations against former OU President David Boren — from public view.
OU Daily