When Governor Abigail Spanberger recently announced a series of reforms at the Virginia Department of Corrections, I found myself thinking about my father.
He spent 33 years working behind prison walls. Fresh out of the Marines, he began his corrections career at Powhatan Correctional Center in 1975. After that facility closed, he transferred to Nottoway Correctional Center, one of Virginia’s largest prisons. He retired as Assistant Superintendent of Chatham Men’s Diversion Center Unit 15 in 2007.
For more than three decades, he walked cell blocks, supervised inmates, managed crises and worked alongside correctional officers whose names most Virginians will never know.
That is why one line from Spanberger’s announcement stood out to me. Reflecting on conditions she encountered after taking office, the governor said many of the problems inside Virginia’s correctional system were “not wrong because of the dedicated VADOC employees who work tirelessly day in and day out, but systematically wrong.”
Anyone who has spent time around correctional officers understands exactly what she meant. For most Virginians, prisons are largely invisible institutions. We hear about them when a major crime occurs, when an inmate escapes, or when politicians debate sentencing laws. But few citizens ever see what happens inside those walls on a daily basis.
Correctional officers do. Every shift. They work in environments where tensions can escalate quickly. They supervise people struggling with addiction, mental illness, trauma and anger. They are expected to maintain order while balancing safety, professionalism and humanity.
Yet correctional officers are often absent from our public conversations about criminal justice. Police officers occupy a prominent place in American culture. Their work appears in movies, television shows, campaign speeches and newspaper headlines. Correctional officers spend much of their careers out of sight and out of mind.
My father’s career gave me an appreciation for how difficult that work can be. Over 33 years, he witnessed changes in prison populations, correctional philosophies, leadership structures and public attitudes. He worked in traditional prison settings and later helped oversee a diversion center focused on preparing individuals for successful reentry into society.
He understood something that our politics often overlooks: prison safety is not a partisan issue. A prison where officers are assaulted less often is safer. A prison where fewer inmates overdose is safer. A prison where fewer lockdowns occur is safer. A prison where mental health crises are handled more effectively is safer.
Those goals are not in conflict with one another. They reinforce one another.
According to the governor’s office, serious inmate-on-staff assaults have declined by 56 percent this year compared to the same period in 2025. Confirmed overdoses have declined by 47 percent. Use-of-force incidents are down 39 percent, and facility lockdowns have declined by 27 percent.
Those numbers deserve attention. Not because they represent a political victory for one administration or another, but because they measure conditions inside institutions that most citizens never see.
The national debate over criminal justice often creates a false choice between concern for correctional officers and concern for incarcerated individuals.
Advocates on one side focus on prison conditions. Advocates, on the other hand, emphasize officer safety and public security.
The reality is that these interests frequently overlap. An understaffed prison is dangerous for everyone. Drug trafficking inside a facility is dangerous for everyone. Poor mental health resources affect everyone. Disorder affects everyone.
The safest prisons are often those where staff have adequate support, leadership is accountable, and incarcerated individuals are treated with professionalism and consistency.
That is one reason the governor’s broader reforms matter as much as the statistics. Her administration has established a new Code of Ethics, created an Office of Professional Standards, implemented new de-escalation-focused use-of-force training and ended the use of five-point restraints for individuals experiencing mental health crises.
Reasonable people can debate individual policies. They should. But accountability, professionalism and transparency should not be controversial goals.
Neither should recognizing the work performed by correctional officers. In her remarks, Spanberger told VADOC employees: “Your work is improving lives, strengthening public safety, and earning the trust of communities across Virginia.”
For too long, corrections officers have received little public acknowledgment despite performing one of the most difficult jobs in government.
My father was among them. He spent his adult life working in places most Virginians will never enter. He supervised individuals at some of the lowest moments of their lives. He helped maintain order in environments where order could never be taken for granted.
He also understood that most incarcerated people would eventually return to society. That is why correctional systems cannot focus solely on punishment. They must also focus on stability, accountability and rehabilitation. Public safety does not begin when someone leaves prison. It begins while they are still there.
Virginia’s latest reforms will ultimately be judged not by press conferences or press releases but by results.
Do correctional officers feel safer? Do fewer employees leave the profession?
Do incarcerated individuals experience fewer overdoses and crises? Are facilities more stable? Is public trust improving?
Those are the questions that matter. Whenever I hear debates about prison reform, I think about my father and the thousands of Virginians like him who spent careers working behind walls most citizens never see.
They understood something our politics often forgets. The measure of a correctional system is not whether one side claims victory. It is whether the people inside it, staff and inmates alike, are safer than they were before.
Jeff Bennett is the author of The Black Belt of Virginia: Untold Stories of African American History, published by The History Press.
