The Human Impact of Incarceration in Virginia

in partnership with The Humanization Project


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Virginia Context

We start by exploring the general context of Virginia's criminal justice system.

Virginia has significantly less crime than the national average.

Statewide crime rates have been steady over the past few years.

Yet, Virginia has one of the highest incarceration rates in the nation.

Virginia ranks 41st in overall crime rate (2.17%) but 20th in incarceration rate (6.79%)

This means: while Virginia sentences fewer people overall, those who are sentenced are recieving much harsher sentences than the average state.

Virginia incarcerates people at 4.5 times the rate of the average OECD country.

"Tough on Crime"

The US claims to be "tough on crime," but at what cost? And with what results?

Evidence does not suggest that longer sentences effectively deter crime. In fact, the US has some of the highest violent crime rates of OECD countries. The nation's overreliance on long sentences has failed to deter crime and fails to rehabilitate offenders. Virginia's long sentences serve to punish individuals without addressing the root causes of crime.

Sentencing Guidelines

In 1991, Virginia introduced sentencing guidelines to curtail judicial discretion.

Now, the Virginia Criminal Sentencing Commission (VCSC) oversees these guidelines. For most sentencing actions, the sentencing guidelines provide a low, middle, and high sentence length recommendation. Factors involved in this checklist include: repeat offender status, offense type, risk assessments, and more.

Judges are not bound to follow these guidelines, but the VCSC writes mandatory reports and disclose this data to the public. We use this data for the analysis below.

The Human Impacts

We'll examine the cost of incarceration at the individual level.

Overview

Health Impact

Health

  • Prison environments often worsen existing health conditions
  • Limited access to quality healthcare and mental health services
  • Higher rates of chronic diseases and substance abuse disorders
Family Impact

Family

  • Children of incarcerated parents face increased poverty and instability
  • Families lose primary income earners and emotional support
  • Social stigma affects entire family networks and communities
Rehabilitation Impact

Rehabilitation

  • Limited access to education and job training programs
  • Difficulty finding employment after release
  • High recidivism rates due to lack of support systems

Let's take a look at how this generalizes . . .

Affect of Incarceration on a Person's Lifetime

Imposed Sentence by Virginia Judicial Circuit

The suggested sentencing lengths vary greatly between districts. This demonstrates possible room for improvement in the Virginia judicial system.

Imposed Sentence by Trial Type

For most crimes, the type of trial greatly affects the length of sentence. Specifically, Jury Trial and Jury Trial with Juvenile Defendant result in the longest sentences.
*If no bar appears, it is due to the median being 0.

Rehabilitation

Explore Reform Opportunities in Virginia

  • Second Look: a chance for judges to reduce sentences for those with particularly long sentences and good behavior
  • Parole: in Virginia, parole is near impossible to obtain. We can broaden the classes of those who will become eligible to obtain parole and break down the barriers for them to obtain it.
  • Expand the Earned Sentence Credit: broadening the coverage of the existing credit program which reduces sentence length for every 30 days of good behavior.

Katherine Byunn-Rieder, Saman de Silva, Jodie Kuo

CS 1710 - Fall 2025