Contact your representative. Tell them that you, along with most people in Virginia, support prison reform. Since 1995, a year after the Virginia Assembly passed legislation to abolish parole, Virginia has built fourteen new prisons and many new jails even as the crime rate has declined. The money spent building new prisons to house those serving long sentences could be better used in three ways: to fund rehabilitative programs for inmates in the prisons, to fund re-entry programs for those leaving prison, and to fund education in Virginia to prevent children from going to prison.

Organize and mobilize for change.  To see a list of organizations that work to transform the carceral system, visit the Virginia Prison Justice Network page.