Virginia’s Criminal Justice Crossroads: Post-Conviction Issues in the Commonwealth
This is part of a series on crime and justice in Virginia. Read the other posts here: Pre-Arrest, Pretrial.
Virginia has long held a reputation for being “tough on crime”—a perception rooted in policy decisions from the 1990s, including the abolition of parole for felonies in 1995. But that image has begun to shift. The Commonwealth now approaches post-conviction issues through a more thoughtful, data-driven lens, implementing reforms that reduce taxpayer costs while enhancing public safety outcomes. These reforms have coincided with one important outcome—Virginia now leads other states with the nation’s lowest recidivism rate, a rank it has maintained for 12 consecutive years.
However, it is critical to avoid conflating correlation with causation. While proponents of “tough on crime” policies argue that severe sentencing is responsible for reduced recidivism, the evidence—including from the Virginia Department of Corrections (VADOC) itself—tells a more nuanced story.
Tough on Crime Didn’t Lower Recidivism; Smart Criminal Justice Policy Did
In its 2025 recidivism report, VADOC attributes much of the state’s success to rehabilitative efforts, particularly access to effective educational programming. Programs like Virginia Correctional Enterprises, which offer incarcerated individuals job training and employment during their time in jail, also contribute to lower re-offense rates. Further, Virginia has prioritized post-release support, including access to Medicaid enrollment and reentry services that help individuals reintegrate into their communities.
The decline in reoffending has coincided with substantial reforms, including the expansion of geriatric parole and a greater emphasis on rehabilitation. These developments challenge the assumption that harsher penalties drive public safety. In reality, progress has come from investing in smarter criminal justice policies—not simply locking people up for longer.
Adopted in 2020 and recently implemented, the earned sentence credit system is another promising reform. It allows incarcerated individuals to reduce their sentences by up to 15 percent through successful completion of job training, educational courses, and other approved programs. Though still in its early stages, the long-term potential of this policy is significant. It fosters accountability while promoting rehabilitation, equipping individuals with the skills and support they need to reenter society successfully.
Furthermore, Virginia passed its clean slate law in 2021, enabling automatic sealing of criminal records for many misdemeanor and low-level felony convictions. The law, which covers roughly 90 percent of misdemeanors plus ancillary offenses, is in its implementation phase and expected to go into full effect next year. This is important because fewer than 10 percent of individuals currently eligible to have their records sealed have done so—largely due to the cost and complexity of existing petition-based processes. Virginia, a state where 2.6 million of 8.7 million people have a criminal record, only processes about 4,000 petition-based cases each year.
By eliminating filing and service fees, the hope is that automatic sealing can significantly increase these numbers and improve housing, education, and employment opportunities for those whose records are sealed. Yet, its full impact hinges on effective implementation and outreach to impacted individuals.
The Big House Costs Big Bucks: The Price of parole Restrictions and Overcrowded Prisons
Virginia’s decision to abolish parole for most felony offenses in 1995 (and for individuals with multiple misdemeanors after 2008) has had lasting implications. While some avenues for parole still exist, they’re limited and underutilized.
For example, geriatric release is available to incarcerated individuals aged 65 years and older who have served at least five years or those 60 and older who have served at least 10 years, provided they are not serving time for a Class 1 felony. Virginia also permits for the release of terminally ill prisoners under specific conditions.
Unique to Virginia, the Fishback law corrected a gap stemming from the Supreme Court case Fishback v. Commonwealth. Court decisions required juries to be informed that while parole had been abolished, the ruling wasn’t retroactive. The Fishback statute addressed this by providing relief to those sentenced between 1995 and 2000.
Additionally, Virginia permits parole for individuals sentenced to 20 years or more for offenses committed as minors once they have served at least 20 years of their sentence. Despite these mechanisms, the state approves only about 3 percent of applications annually—one of the lowest parole grant rates in the nation.
The financial toll of these restrictions is staggering. One analysis estimated that aligning Virginia’s parole rates with those of comparable states could save the Old Dominion $465 million annually. With the average annual cost of $52,990 per inmate and a prison population of 22,798, the Department of Corrections commands a $1.5 billion budget. This consumes a significant portion of the Commonwealth’s $31.8 billion general fund.
But the consequences extend beyond dollars and cents. Overcrowding is a growing concern, with some facilities operating at 140 percent of their intended capacity. With limited parole options, the state lacks effective mechanisms to alleviate this pressure. Local jails are increasingly forced to house state prisoners, placing additional strain on already stretched resources.
Moreover, the idea that incarceration alone reduces recidivism is flawed. It also runs counter to the consensus of practitioners that swift justice and the certainty of being caught are what best deter criminal activity. Evidence that the severity of punishment has little effect on its own supports this.
Additionally, the decline in recidivism isn’t driven so much by Virginia’s “tough on crime” approach. Rather, it’s likely the fact that many individuals released after lengthy periods of incarceration are already past the point of likely re-offense, as recidivism rates fall sharply with age. Most individuals who commit crimes stop within 10 years, and even repeat offenders usually stop by their late 30s.
Is Orange the New Black? Gender Shifts and Staffing Shortages
The makeup of Virginia’s incarcerated populations has changed considerably in recent years, particularly by gender. The state’s female incarcerated population has increased dramatically in the past 40 years— from 15 women incarcerated in jails per 100,000 residents in 1980 to 116 women incarcerated in jails per 100,000 residents in 2020. In prisons, these rates increased from 43 women incarcerated per 100,000 residents in 1990 to 83 women incarcerated per 100,000 residents in 2020. This increase outpaces the increase in incarceration rates overall as well as among males, particularly in jails.
Historically, carceral facilities have been built by and for men, leaving women with unmet needs in many jails and prisons across the country. Of women in jails in Virginia in 2024, 42.9 percent were reported to have a mental illness—nearly twice the rate of their male counterparts. Nationally, between 30 and 60 percent of women in prison have substance use disorders. These rates are higher than those of men in prison and a full five times higher than non-incarcerated women.
The types of crimes that women are in VADOC custody for bear this out. Only 33 percent of incarcerated women in Virginia are serving time for violent offenses, to men’s 59 percent. By contrast, 45 percent are serving time for property and public disorder offenses, to men’s 24 percent. The percentage of those serving time for drug offenses is also higher for women than for men, indicating different drivers of crime for different genders.
Women in the criminal justice system are also far more likely to have histories of trauma than incarcerated men. Between 60 percent and 90 percent of women in state prisons nationwide are victims of sexual or physical violence. Given that most incarcerated women are mothers to minor children, careful consideration must be given when determining how to best serve this population in a manner that recognizes and protects public safety while still managing gender-specific differences appropriately.
Beyond overcrowding and demographic changes in carceral facilities, staffing issues have also reached critical levels. Correctional officers face burnout from managing large inmate populations, which can lead to increased violence when more inmates are housed in smaller quarters. Reports have flagged many Virginia prisons as “dangerously short-staffed,” with facilities like Red Onion State Prison drawing particular concern. Some facilities are currently operating at well under half of their authorized correctional officer levels, exacerbating safety and operational risks.
Understaffing also contributes directly to delayed or inadequate medical care, as well as severe burnout among correctional staff who are overworked and often underpaid. Without substantial improvements in recruitment, retention, and working conditions, even well-designed policy reforms inside of prisons will struggle to deliver intended outcomes due to an inability to implement them. These conditions and realities have sparked bipartisan efforts to reexamine the state’s restrictive parole policies and other policies external to carceral facilities themselves in order to reduce overcrowding and alleviate shortages.
Less Clink, More Think
As highlighted throughout this series, a simplistic “tough on crime” approach often fails to produce the desired outcomes. By focusing on severity rather than certainty and swiftness of punishment, Virginia has spent more than necessary on incarceration while missing opportunities to promote public safety more effectively.
The Commonwealth would be better served by a strategic, evidence-based approach to criminal justice. Expanding parole opportunities, reducing unnecessary incarceration, addressing gender-based differences, and improving reentry practices could generate significant cost savings, which could then be reinvested into correctional law enforcement staffing and training and improved community engagement.
Virginia is already one of the safest states in the country—a testament to its commitment to public safety. But even strong systems benefit from reform. Smarter policies can enhance both fiscal responsibility and justice outcomes to benefit communities across the state.