Children and Incarceration in Virginia: A Complete Guide

Virginia has a nonprofit organization that has spent five years systematically reducing the cost of video visitation in the state's prisons. Assisting Families of Inmates, known as AFOI, was founded in Richmond in 1978 and has been working alongside the Virginia Department of Corrections to expand video access, reduce costs, and provide subsidy funding for families who cannot afford visits. As of July 1, 2025, AFOI and VADOC have reduced video visitation to $0.12 per minute, down from $0.20 when the sustained reduction process began.

That is not a marketing statistic. It is four consecutive cost reductions over five years by a nonprofit that operates on the explicit premise that family connection during incarceration matters for rehabilitation outcomes. AFOI also operates a Visitation Assistance Fund that provides subsidy support for families who cannot afford video visits even at the reduced rate. Virginia has built something in AFOI that most states in this series have not: a sustained, structured, organized external advocate for the family relationship between the inside parent and the children at home.

I went into the federal system, not the VADOC. I went in when my kids were 9, 11, 12, 15, 18, and 20. What I know from 66 months is that the infrastructure a state builds around family connection shapes what is possible. Virginia has built substantial infrastructure. What both parents do with it is still the choice that matters.

AFOI and what it provides

Assisting Families of Inmates at afoi.org offers several services to Virginia families. For video visitation: AFOI manages the program in partnership with ViaPath/ConnectNetwork. Families use ViaPath's system to schedule and conduct video visits. The current rate is $0.12 per minute for state prison video visits, available in 20-minute or 50-minute blocks. The Visitation Assistance Fund at afoi.org can provide subsidy support for families who cannot afford video visits.

AFOI also offers assistance with completing visitation applications for families who need help. They do not have access to application status information once submitted; for status updates, contact VADOC staff directly.

Central Visitation Unit: P.O. Box 26963, Richmond VA 23261; 804-887-8341. Video visitation issues through ViaPath: if the ViaPath mobile app is not working for scheduling, contact VADOC directly.

The visitor list change and what it means

In June 2023, VADOC made a significant change to its visitation rules. Effective June 1, 2023, inmates are no longer required to complete and submit an Inmate Visiting List to their counselor in January and July. Visitors are no longer required to be on an inmate's approved visiting list to be approved for in-person visitation.

This is a significant operational change. Previously, a family member could not visit without being on the inmate's approved list, and the list was only updated twice a year. Now, any person who is approved through the general visitation application process can visit, regardless of whether the inmate has listed them specifically. The approval process still applies: visitors still need to submit an application and receive approval. But the inmate-specific list as a prerequisite for visitation has been eliminated.

What this means practically: a family member who was not on the approved list, including a grandparent or extended family member who was added during the sentence, can now apply and visit without the inmate needing to take any action to list them first. This opens up the pool of people who can bring children to visit a parent in a Virginia facility.

Virginia's geography: Richmond to Appalachia

Virginia runs from the Chesapeake Bay and the coastal plain in the east to the Appalachian coalfields of Wise County in the far southwest. Richmond is in the center. Washington DC and its suburbs are in the northeast corner. The state's largest population concentrations are the Northern Virginia suburbs, the Richmond metro, and the Hampton Roads metro.

The facilities are distributed across the state. Some are accessible to the population centers: Coffeewood Correctional Center in Culpeper County is an hour and a half southwest of Washington. Buckingham Correctional Center in Dillwyn is two hours west of Richmond. These are real drives but not extreme ones.

The difficult geography is the far southwest. Red Onion State Prison is in Pound in Wise County, in the coalfields of far southwest Virginia near the Kentucky border. Wallens Ridge State Prison is in Big Stone Gap, also in Wise County. From Richmond, the drive to Wise County is over five hours through the mountain country of the Allegheny and Blue Ridge ranges. From Northern Virginia, it is similar. For a family in Virginia Beach with a parent at Red Onion, it is a 7-hour drive through the full length of the state.

For those families, the $0.12 video visit and the ViaPath phone call are not supplements to the in-person visit. They are what the relationship consists of across most of the year.

The decision Virginia's infrastructure does not make for either parent

My wife never said a word against me to our six children during 66 months. She had every reason. She had six kids in a situation I had created. She chose to let them love me without penalty. What I have with my adult children today is the direct result of that choice.

The parent inside a Virginia facility carries the same obligation. AFOI has spent five years reducing the cost of video contact. VADOC removed the approved visitor list requirement. The system has made contact more accessible than it has ever been in Virginia. What the parent inside does with that access is the variable that determines what the children experience.

Use the ViaPath video visit system. Schedule the visit. Show up for the call. Ask what happened at school. Remember what the child said last time. Ask about it by name. Show the child you are paying attention from Wise County or Sussex County or wherever in Virginia the sentence has placed you.

What the ages mean in Virginia

My children were 9, 11, 12, 15, 18, and 20 when I went in.

The 9-year-old in Richmond or Northern Virginia or Hampton Roads whose parent is at a VADOC facility needs the same thing every 9-year-old in this series needs: to hear directly and often that none of what happened is their fault. Children under 10 build private, silent explanations for a parent's absence. The explanation they most often reach is that they caused it. That belief settles in quietly. Set up the ViaPath account. Use the Visitation Assistance Fund if needed. Call on a consistent schedule. Say it on every call: this is not your fault. I love you. I am still your parent.

The 11 and 12-year-old in Virginia is navigating middle school in a state with wide range, from the densely suburban Northern Virginia corridor to the rural coalfields of Southwest Virginia. A parent's incarceration carries different weight in those different communities, but the core need is the same: evidence that the incarcerated parent is paying consistent attention. The $0.12 video visit, the ViaPath phone call, the letter all provide that evidence if the parent uses them. Use them.

The 15-year-old has formed views about both parents. They evaluate every contact for authenticity. Call to ask and listen. The teenager who believes the incarcerated parent is genuinely paying attention will stay in the relationship through the years of the sentence.

The 18 and 20-year-old is an adult making choices. Show up as someone worth the decision.

What the outside parent carries in Virginia

The outside parent in Richmond or Fairfax or Norfolk is managing children, a household, and the logistics of incarceration in a state where the drive to the facility can be 90 minutes or 7 hours depending on where the classification officer placed the parent. They are navigating the visitation application, the ViaPath scheduling system, and potentially the AFOI Visitation Assistance Fund.

What they need from the incarcerated parent is acknowledgment. One ViaPath video call or phone call where the person inside names specifically what they see the outside parent carrying and says thank you for it, in direct and genuine terms, is worth more than any instruction delivered from inside a Virginia facility. My wife carried six children through 66 months. She deserved to hear that I saw it. I said so as often as the access allowed.

For the outside parent: the children will carry what they hear you say about the incarcerated parent. Virginia has AFOI. It has a Visitation Assistance Fund. It has reduced the video visit cost four times in five years. Use all of it. Speak carefully about the incarcerated parent in front of the children who are listening. My wife never said anything against me. What I have now is what that made possible.

How communication works in Virginia

VIDEO VISITATION: ViaPath/ConnectNetwork in partnership with AFOI. $0.12 per minute as of July 1, 2025 (20- or 50-minute blocks). For subsidy assistance: Visitation Assistance Fund at afoi.org.

PHONE: ViaPath/ConnectNetwork. Inmates call collect to approved phone numbers. Prepaid options available through ViaPath. FCC cap $0.11/min + facility fee effective April 6, 2026.

VISITATION: Applications processed through VADOC Central Visitation Unit (P.O. Box 26963, Richmond VA 23261; 804-887-8341). As of June 1, 2023, visitors are NO LONGER required to be on the inmate's approved visiting list; general application approval still required. Schedule using the Visitation Scheduler at vadoc.virginia.gov; visitors must register first. One visit per weekend maximum. Visits may be scheduled up to 14 days in advance.

AFOI assistance: afoi.org; help completing visitation applications; Visitation Assistance Fund for video visit subsidies.

VADOC general: vadoc.virginia.gov; (804) 887-8000. Inmate locator: vadoc.virginia.gov.

Key remote facilities: Red Onion State Prison (supermax; 10800 H. Jack Rose Highway, Pound VA 24279; Wise County; 5+ hours from Richmond). Wallens Ridge State Prison (supermax; 272 Dogwood Drive, Big Stone Gap VA 24219; Wise County). Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women (Troy; Fluvanna County; women).

Federal inmates in Virginia, including those at FCI Petersburg, fall under BOP jurisdiction. BOP communication uses TRULINCS for email via CORRLINKS and TRUFONE for phone. FCC rate caps apply; First Step Act programming offers 300 free minutes per month.

Where this leaves you

Virginia has AFOI. It has reduced the video visit cost four times in five years. It removed the approved visitor list requirement. It has a Visitation Assistance Fund for families who cannot afford even the reduced video rate. It has built more family support infrastructure around its prison system than almost any other state in this series.

AFOI says it does this work because families impacted by incarceration deserve meaningful visitation, family support, and children's programs. That framing is the same framing this entire series has been built on: the children of incarcerated parents need active support, not benign neglect. Virginia has an organization that has been operationalizing that belief for 45 years.

What AFOI has not built, and what no organization can build, is the willingness of both parents to make the choices that protect the children. That willingness is still the individual variable. Use the ViaPath video system at $0.12 per minute. Apply through the Central Visitation Unit. Contact AFOI if you need help with the application or the cost. Schedule the visit.

Then show up for it. Show up in the video call the way the child in Richmond or Woodbridge or Norfolk needs you to show up: asking real questions about a real life, paying genuine attention, saying directly what the 9-year-old needs to hear. Virginia has done the work to make the access possible. Both parents still have to do the work to make the contact matter.