Virginia Code 53.1-5: Powers and duties of Board
The Board shall have the following powers and duties:
Terms Used In Virginia Code 53.1-5
- Community correctional facility: means any group home, halfway house or other physically unrestricting facility used for the housing, treatment or care of adult offenders established or operated with funds appropriated to the Department of Corrections from the state treasury and maintained or operated by any political subdivision, combination of political subdivisions or privately operated agency within the Commonwealth. See Virginia Code 53.1-1
- Director: means the Director of the Department of Corrections. See Virginia Code 53.1-1
- Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
- State: when applied to a part of the United States, includes any of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the United States Virgin Islands. See Virginia Code 1-245
1. To develop and establish operational and fiscal standards governing the operation of local, regional, and community correctional facilities;
2. To advise the Governor and Director on matters relating to corrections;
3. To make, adopt and promulgate such rules and regulations as may be necessary to carry out the provisions of this title and other laws of the Commonwealth pertaining to local, regional, and community correctional facilities;
4. To ensure the development of programs to educate citizens and elicit public support for the activities of the Department;
5. To develop and implement policies and procedures for the review of the death of any inmate that the Board determines warrants review that occurs in any local, regional, or community correctional facility. Such policies and procedures shall incorporate the Board’s authority under § 53.1-6 to ensure the production of evidence necessary to conduct a thorough review of any such death;
6. To establish minimum standards for health care services, including medical, dental, pharmaceutical, and behavioral health services, in local, regional, and community correctional facilities and procedures for enforcing such minimum standards, with the advice of and guidance from the Commissioner of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services and State Health Commissioner or their designees. Such minimum standards shall require that each local, regional, and community correctional facility submit a standardized quarterly continuous quality improvement report documenting the delivery of health care services, along with any improvements made to those services, to the Board. The Board shall make such reports available to the public on its website. The Board may determine that any local, regional, or community correctional facility that is accredited by the American Correctional Association or National Commission on Correctional Health Care meets such minimum standards solely on the basis of such facility’s accreditation status; however, without exception, the requirement that each local, regional, and community correctional facility submit a standardized quarterly continuous quality improvement report to the Board shall be a mandatory minimum standard; and
7. To report annually on or before December 1 to the General Assembly and the Governor on the results of the inspections and audits of local, regional, or community correctional facilities conducted pursuant to § 53.1-68 and the reviews of the deaths of inmates that occur in any local, regional, or community correctional facility conducted pursuant to § 53.1-69.1. The report shall include (i) a summary of the results of such inspections, audits, and reviews, including any trends identified by such inspections, audits, and reviews and the frequency of violations of each standard established for local, regional, or community correctional facilities, and (ii) any recommendations for changes to the standards established for local, regional, or community correctional facilities or the policies and procedures for conducting reviews of the death of inmates to improve the operations, safety, and security of local, regional, or community correctional facilities.
Code 1950, §§ 53-19.33, 53-19.34, 53-19.39; 1974, cc. 44, 45; 1976, c. 249; 1982, c. 636; 1984, c. 720; 2011, c. 375; 2012, cc. 803, 835; 2015, c. 293; 2017, c. 759; 2019, cc. 695, 696; 2020, c. 759.