Family Rights and Advocacy in Virginia

If someone you love is locked up in Virginia, two things stand out from the start. First, a nonprofit founded in 1978, Assisting Families of Inmates, actually runs the video visitation program for the state and has driven the price down four times in recent years, even offering a fund to help families who cannot afford visits. Second, Virginia just created a new Corrections Ombudsman with a legal mandate to inspect every prison and track deaths, assaults, and grievances across the system. Both of these work in your favor.

The Virginia Department of Corrections (VADOC) holds tens of thousands of people across more than two dozen facilities, some of them in the remote far southwest of the state, hours from the cities where most families live. I have been on the inside, and I know the family on the outside carries a load nobody talks about. This guide is written for you.

What the VADOC System Looks Like

VADOC runs more than two dozen prisons, work centers, and field units across Virginia. A few you will hear about:

Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women and the Virginia Correctional Center for Women (both in the Goochland area) are the main facilities for women.

Greensville (Jarratt) is one of the largest facilities and houses the execution chamber.

Red Onion State Prison (Wise County) and Wallens Ridge State Prison (Big Stone Gap) are the two supermax prisons, both in the far southwest corner of the state, which can mean a very long drive for visits.

Sussex 1 and Sussex 2, Nottoway, Buckingham, Augusta, River North, and Deerfield are major men's facilities.

After sentencing, your loved one goes through an intake and classification process before being assigned to a facility. To find where they are, use the inmate locator on vadoc.virginia.gov, which is updated daily. You will get their offender ID number, which you need for mail, money, calls, and visits.

Staying Connected: Phone Calls

VADOC uses GTL (Global Tel*Link, now operating as ViaPath) for phone service through ConnectNetwork. Your loved one can call numbers on their approved call list, either collect or through a prepaid account you set up. Calls go one direction, your loved one calls you, and they are recorded except properly arranged legal calls. To set up or fund an account, use ConnectNetwork or contact GTL at 877-650-4249. Prepaid is generally cheaper than collect, so set up a plan and watch your balance.

Staying Connected: Video Visitation Through AFOI

Here is where Virginia is unusual. Video visitation is run in partnership with Assisting Families of Inmates (AFOI), an independent Richmond nonprofit, and the cost has dropped repeatedly: from 20 cents per minute to 15 cents in January 2025, then to 12 cents per minute in July 2025. Just as important, AFOI runs a Visitation Assistance Fund that can subsidize visits for families who cannot afford them. If money is your barrier to staying in contact, contact AFOI directly.

Setting up a video visit takes a few steps:

First, each visitor must be approved by VADOC. Then complete an AFOI video visitation application and waiver, with all required signatures, and submit it online or by email to family@afoi.org.

There is a limit of four approved visitors per visit, and that count includes children.

AFOI needs about two weeks to process new paperwork. Once VADOC approves it, AFOI contacts you to complete a phone intake and issues you a Family Identification (F number).

Staying Connected: In-Person Visiting

To visit in person, you must submit a visitation application online; VADOC no longer accepts paper applications. Approved applications expire after 36 months (three years), so you will renew periodically. You can be approved to visit more than one inmate only if they are immediate family; otherwise, you may visit only one inmate who is not immediate family.

Most institutions allow visiting on Saturdays, Sundays, and state holidays, but procedures vary by facility and can change at any time, so always contact the specific facility before you travel. The full rules are in VADOC Operating Procedure 851.1. For visitation questions, the VADOC visitation line is (804) 887-8341 and the email is VisitationInquiries@vadoc.virginia.gov.

Staying Connected: Mail

Send mail using your loved one's full committed name and offender ID number, addressed to their facility. VADOC has specific mailing procedures and restrictions on what you can send, and these change, so review the current mail procedures on vadoc.virginia.gov before sending anything. Legal mail follows separate rules.

Sending Money

VADOC uses JPay to send money to an inmate's account, which your loved one uses for commissary, phone, and other services. Set up an account through JPay and confirm the current options on vadoc.virginia.gov.

Your Rights and Your Loved One's Rights

Most rights inside belong to the incarcerated person, not to family members, but knowing them helps you advocate.

Your loved one has the right to reasonable contact with the outside world through mail, phone, and visits, subject to the rules above and to discipline. They have the right to medical and mental health care, to reasonable accommodations for disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504, to practice their religion, and to be free from abuse and sexual violence. VADOC maintains a zero-tolerance policy on sexual assault and harassment under the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), with reporting channels your loved one can use. They have the right to use the grievance system, and generally must complete it before a court will hear most claims.

For disability accommodations, every VADOC facility should have a designated VADOC ADA Coordinator who handles requests and grievances related to a disability. Virginia has seen active litigation here, including a recent settlement requiring VADOC to provide equal access to communications, services, and programs for blind and visually impaired prisoners.

When Something Goes Wrong: How to Advocate

Push the grievance process first. Encourage your loved one to file and appeal through VADOC's formal grievance system, document everything, keep copies, and mail a copy to you as backup. Completing it is usually required before any lawsuit.

Use the new Corrections Ombudsman. Virginia recently created an independent ombudsman unit with a legal mandate to provide information about the rights of incarcerated people to inmates and their families, monitor conditions of confinement, collect statewide data on deaths in custody, assaults, restrictive housing, and grievances, and inspect every VADOC facility on a regular cycle. This is a brand-new oversight channel that did not exist a few years ago, and it is worth contacting through VADOC about systemic concerns.

Contact the disAbility Law Center of Virginia (dLCV). dLCV (dlcv.org, 1512 Willow Lawn Drive, Suite 100, Richmond, VA 23230) is Virginia's federally mandated protection and advocacy organization for people with disabilities, including mental illness. It has authority to investigate abuse and neglect and to access facilities, and it has litigated major disability cases against VADOC. If your loved one has a disability or mental illness and is being denied care or accommodations, this is a key resource.

Contact the ACLU of Virginia. The ACLU of Virginia (acluva.org) works on prisoners' rights and systemic conditions issues, including a federal class action challenging the use of solitary confinement in Virginia prisons. It focuses on broad problems rather than individual cases.

Lean on AFOI for family support. Beyond video visitation, AFOI (afoi.org) provides family support programs and children's services for families affected by incarceration. For many Virginia families, it is the most useful single contact.

Use national organizations. The Human Rights Defense Center and Prison Legal News (humanrightsdefensecenter.org) cover prisoner rights and prison communication costs. Families Against Mandatory Minimums (famm.org) works on sentencing. Worth Rises (worthrises.org) tracks the prison telecom industry.

Contact elected officials. Conditions in Virginia's prisons, especially in the supermax facilities, have drawn legislative attention. A letter to your state delegate or senator about a systemic problem genuinely gets attention and can prompt questions to VADOC that a family member cannot ask directly.

Taking Care of Yourself

Get your visitation application in online, set up your phone and JPay accounts, and look hard at AFOI video visits and the Visitation Assistance Fund, especially if your loved one is held in the far southwest and the drive is long. Learn the current mail rules so your letters are not delayed. Know that Virginia now has a real oversight body in the Corrections Ombudsman and a strong P and A organization in dLCV if something goes wrong. Most of all, take care of your own health, because doing time on the outside is its own kind of sentence, and staying steady for yourself is part of staying steady for your person.