Virginia Department of Corrections - History

History

From the time of the first settlement at Jamestown to the relocation of the state capital to Richmond in the late 18th century, Virginia relied upon corporal and capital punishment as its penal measures. Gradually, Virginia began to use small county jails for sentences of confinement.

After the Revolutionary War, Thomas Jefferson began to urge Virginia to construct a "penitentiary house." At that time, penitentiary houses were being used throughout Europe to confine and reform criminals. However, for more than a decade, the Virginia General Assembly ignored Jefferson's ideas.

In 1796, a wave of reform swept the Virginia Legislature, and Benjamin Latrobe was hired to design a penitentiary house for the newly formed Virginia Department of Welfare and Institutions. Latrobe's facility was constructed on a site outside of Richmond overlooking the James River. The facility, which received its first prisoners in 1800 and was completed (with prison labor) in 1804, was known by generations of Virginians as the Virginia State Penitentiary or "The Pen." The structure later burned and was torn down in 1905. A new facility was built and operated continuously until being demolished in 1992. In 1896, a farm operation (James River Correctional Center) was established in Goochland County for "miscreants and the infirm." This facility continues to operate in the same location to this day.

Community Corrections officially began in Virginia on October 1, 1942 as the Probation and Parole Services Agency, with the employees of the division referred to as Probation and Parole Officers. By an act of the Virginia Legislature in 1944, the VADOC was officially formed out of the former Virginia Department of Welfare and Institutions, the Virginia Parole Board, and the Virginia Department of Probation and Parole Services. Today, the VADOC oversees the operations of the Commonwealth's corrections facilities.