Action: Alert Your Legislators about Ending Mandatory Minimums

The General Assembly is coming up and there’s some bills that could help undo the system that allow people to get over-sentenced, over-charged and end up doing WAY too much time. The bill itself should also allow for people to get reconsidered for shorter sentences – which could help our loved ones come home sooner.

Below is an email you can send to your legislators by the end of the week. Just replace the greeting with the person you’re writing, and change your signature. Feel free to add anything you wish!

If you need to find your legislator’s emails, use this site: https://whosmy.virginiageneralassembly.gov

Subject: 2021 GA – End Mandatory Minimums in Virginia
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Dear/Hi/Good Morning Delegate/Senator (Insert Your Legislator Here),

Hope you’re well. As a consistent of your district and ahead of the general assembly, I wanted to reach out and inform you about legislation that is important to me for 2021. 

While there has been a lot of great strides in criminal justice in Virginia for the past year, we cannot lose momentum in the fight against mass incarceration. To continue having a more fair and equitable criminal justice system, mandatory minimums in Virginia must end. In addition, the updated policy must allow those already sentenced and serving time behind bars receive reconsideration for excessive sentences. Having mandatory minimums in the Virginia laws do not allow judges or juries to do their jobs by hearing cases and facts, as they do not have the power to go against Virginia laws of time that MUST be served if convicted of specific crimes. 

For more context, mandatory minimums don’t reduce crime rates, they don’t reduce recidivism rates, they don’t make the court process more efficient, they aren’t better for victims, and they don’t manage to hold people accountable for the crimes they actually committed. All they do is coerce defendants to plead guilty—including those who are innocent—and prevent judges from being fair in circumstances when fairness is warranted. This policy update is supported by 40% of the state’s prosecutors, and many justice organizations in Virginia. 

Please support these issues in the General Assembly this month, and allowing those who have been impacted by the unjust systems in place to have a second chance to reconsider unfair sentences in progress.

Thank you, and please feel free to reach out with questions. 

Insert Your Name
Insert Your County
Insert Phone Number

Blog: Get to Know Santia

Greetings to everyone, I’m Santia Nance and my journey with criminal justice reform starts with reconnecting with Quadaire Patterson in 2018. As you probably guessed, he is currently incarcerated, and has been since he was 20 years old. You can read so much more about him here, but his crime is one of robbery, which is one of the top convictions here in Virginia.

As I continued to learn about the injustices brought against him, I realized that his crimes were severely over-sentenced for the situation, and did not match the 20 years that he must serve behind bars. I continued to educate myself about mass incarceration and the racial disparities of our country’s criminal justice system and began understanding that his case was actually the normal, especially in Virginia.

I was mad, angry and frustrated that the system did not work for him and ended up learning about advocating through a co-worker, who has a husband that was incarcerated, and had been since the 90s. She shared Facebook groups, resources, and legislation information with me. She also introduced me to other advocates and advocate groups here in Richmond. Since then, I’ve gotten super passionate about changing the system, and more specifically, passionate about getting my loved one out of prison, who has served WAY too much time behind bars.

Quadaire Patterson is one of the smartest and humble people I know, and we have a love story for the ages. Having met by happenstance over 15 years ago, it was easy to tell we were meant to be, even though we lost contact for 10 years. We have our own website all about that if you’re curious, but the moral of the story is that people behind bars are PEOPLE first and will always be people.

After learning all I know now, seeing the stats and the facts, it’s clear to see that we have a humanization problem here in Virginia. Seeing people as people is the first step in realizing that we ALL make mistakes, and we ALL deserve second chances. Currently, Virginia has very limited options to grant those second chances to their 32,000 incarcerated citizens – especially those who have proven themselves to be able to go back out into society, rehabilited and giving back to the community.

I will continue to fight for second chances, changing law policy that doesn’t allow judges and juries to do their jobs, and letting people out of prison who have DONE ENOUGH TIME. Join me. 😊

-Santia