WAVERLY, Va. — Author's Note: The above video is on file from April 6, 2020.
Wanda Taylor hasn't seen her son, Marquis, since the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in Virginia and shut down the state—ending visits at the state's correctional facilities.
Taylor's visits to the Sussex I State Prison near Waverly abruptly turned into video calls — a fine substitute at the time that no longer feels sufficient 15 months later.
"He loved those visits — actually being in person you can talk, you can see him. I don't really care for the video, but I do it," said Taylor, who lives in Hopewell.
"He's only 20 minutes away."
While COVID-19 public restrictions in Virginia ended nearly two months ago, the state's prisons have remained closed to visitors, even those who are fully vaccinated, to the distress of family members like Taylor eager to reconnect with their loved ones.
The Virginia Department of Corrections this month published its plan for resuming visits, projecting that family appointments will have resumed at all of its facilities by early October.
"It's very concerning to me that they're taking their time starting visitations," Taylor said in an interview.
Visits inside the state's correctional facilities were halted last year in an effort to protect inmates and staff who live and work in close quarters, heightening the risk of outbreaks. As of Thursday, more than 9,000 inmates had tested positive for COVID-19, 56 of whom had died as a result.
With the COVID-19 vaccine, cases across the state have reached pandemic lows, including at the state's prisons. On Thursday, the state reported just six active COVID-19 cases across its 40 facilities. Roughly 83% of the state's prison population is vaccinated.
When the vaccine first arrived in Virginia, Angela Adinolfi says she and other family members of people who are incarcerated anticipated visits would soon follow. The anticipation reached a boiling point in early June, when department officials said the agency was working on a plan to do just that.
"We thought, we will see our loved ones this summer," said Adinolfi, whose husband, Quinton, is at the St. Brides Correctional Center in Chesapeake. He was sentenced to prison on robbery and abduction charges.
Adinolfi lives in Chesterfield County and hasn't seen her husband in person since the pandemic started. She said she speaks regularly with her husband through the new video visitation program, which she says has been plagued with issues. And can be costly.
"We were doing them three times a week, but we had to start cutting them back to two," said Adinolfi of the video calls, which cost $8 for 20 minutes to $20 for 50 minutes.
"It sounds like he's in a fishbowl."
Her hopes of soon speaking face to face quickly deflated on July 8, when the state published a rough timeline for resuming visits.
"When they said October, everyone was taken aback, just flabbergasted," said Adinolfi, who is part of an online support group for family and friends with incarcerated loved ones. The reaction among members was emphatic.
"October 1 seemed absolutely insane on so many levels," she added. "Virginia is so far behind other states on visits."
Data that The Marshall Project published in early July showed Virginia has been slower to ease pandemic restrictions on visits compared with other states.
The outlet reported that 40 states had resumed visitation with "additional precautions and limits," while an additional nine states allowed visits from lawyers and court officials exclusively. Only Virginia and Alabama continued to suspend visitation broadly.
Virginia has since resumed visits for "official visitors," which includes attorneys, and court, embassy and consulate officials. According to the department's plans, religious visitors and volunteers will be allowed back starting Aug. 1.
As for family members and friends, the state plans to kick off a pilot program to resume those visits on Sept. 1, but the department hasn't released details about which facilities will be included in the pilot.
"The department anticipates that in-person family visitation will be resumed at all facilities statewide by Oct. 1. Safety is of the utmost importance," the department said in a statement.
Reached in early July about why the corrections department still had not resumed visits at the state's correctional facilities, a spokesperson for the agency said the state was following guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Guidance from the CDC disseminated to states on June 9, however, encouraged corrections officials to consider modifying their COVID-19 protocols given the availability of vaccines, and urged them to "weigh the logistical and mental health challenges related to intensive mitigation measures against the risks of transmission."
The guidance says that even if facility-wide measures can't be adjusted due to a community outbreak or lack of vaccinations, corrections officials could still allow individual inmates who are fully vaccinated to resume in-person visits.
By the time family visits start in October, the guidance will be 4 months old.
When visits resume, people who are incarcerated and their registered visitors will face new hurdles.
Fran Bolin, the executive director of Assisting Families of Inmates, said it has been advising state officials as they form plans to restart family visitation in Virginia. Bolin's group has long offered shuttle services to the state's correctional facilities and recently partnered with the state to launch the live video calls.
Bolin said visitors will need to schedule their time in advance through a new system. She added that they may face more limits on their time than they did in the past, complicating logistics for families who travel hours for visits.
Once at the facility, the department will require all visitors over age 12 to test negative with a rapid antigen test. Only inmates who are fully vaccinated are allowed to receive visitors.
"There's some extra hurdles to visitations," Bolin said. "What we then hope to do is to make the changes more understandable and bring ease of access for family and friends."
Adinolfi said a common frustration among families in her group is the lack of information coming from the state. She said that in addition to details about the pilot, many families still don't know how long visits will be, whether children under 12 will be allowed to visit, and what the restrictions on physical contact will be.
"Are you going to be able to hug your loved one?" Adinolfi asked.
Some of the precautions the department are proposing face some pushback.
Kisare Bundy, an inmate at the Haynesville Correctional Unit 17, said he was hesitant about the vaccine and declined it after he was told there would be no punishment for his decision. He said in an interview last month that he had heard about the upcoming vaccination requirement for visits, and felt the decision equated to punishment, in particular since no requirement was expected for visitors.
Sarah Woodward, a close friend of Bundy, said the policy for visits does not align with current practice. She said Bundy and other inmates in minimum-security prisons leave their facilities for work often, interacting with the public in a limited capacity outside. Bundy works in a warehouse.
Bundy was sentenced to prison for violating his probation by possessing marijuana.
Adinolfi said she is advocating that the department "come up with a compromise" for such cases, like a non-contact visit. At the very least, she said, the department could waive the video call fees for such inmates.
Asked about the state's plans, Bolin said state officials were focused on safety. She said the state was focused on avoiding an outbreak like the one that took place at a Petersburg facility last year, when nearly 200 inmates tested positive for COVID-19.
"It just hasn't seemed like something they're willing to gamble with," she said. "I know that's frustrating, but it makes sense to us."
Taylor, the mother from Hopewell, said she has missed the presence of her son through holidays and even her own cancer treatment. Taylor said she's fully vaccinated and anticipates being able to see Marquis in person soon.
"I don't think he's going to look different, but he'll look a whole lot happier," Taylor said when asked about what she expected from her first visit.
Marquis was sentenced to prison last year on felony marijuana and controlled substance possession charges.
Adinolfi said the wait for that first visit has been "dreary." She hopes state officials and the public will sympathize with inmates and their families.
"I get that my husband broke the law, I'll never excuse that. But he's still a human, he's still a person," she said, her voice shaking.
"It's hard to describe and put into words because all this time, I've tried to bottle it up. To be strong," she added. "But I already told my husband that when I see him, I'm going to be a mess — it'll be an emotional disaster."
Author's Note: The video below is on file from April 28, 2020.