United States Virgin Islands Department of Justice
The United States Virgin Islands Department of Justice is a department of the United States Virgin Islands government.
| United States Virgin Islands Department of Justice | |
|---|---|
 Seal | |
| Agency overview | |
| Employees | 134 |
| Jurisdictional structure | |
 | |
| Map showing jurisdictional area | |
| Legal jurisdiction | United States Virgin Islands |
| Operational structure | |
| Headquarters | Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, US |
| Agency executive | |
| Parent agency | Office of the Attorney General |
| Website | |
| usvidoj | |
Corrections
[edit]The Virgin Islands Bureau of Corrections (BOC) operates the territory's correctional facilities.[1]
The Bureau of Corrections maintains a facility in Saint Croix,[2] the Golden Grove Adult Correctional Facility. As of October 1, 2014, 132 sentenced prisoners and 136 non-sentenced prisoners are at Golden Grove. The bureau also maintains jails on the island of St. Thomas:[3] those in the Alexander Farrelly Criminal Justice Complex (CJC) and the Alva A. Swan Annex.[2]
As of 2016[update] the BOC does not have a specific correctional officer training program, and instead has the police department train prison guards.[1]
Corrections history
[edit]In 2014 the U.S. Department of Justice asked a federal judge to force the USVI authorities to improve conditions at Golden Grove.[4] Prior to October 1, 2014, due to staffing shortages at Golden Grove, 78 adult prisoners, including 75 sentenced prisoners at Golden Grove and three held at the St. Thomas Jails who were deemed by prison authorities as "behavioral and management concerns", were transferred to the privately operated Citrus County Detention Facility in Citrus County, Florida.[3]
Circa 2013 USVI authorities stated that they were going to improve conditions at the St. Thomas jails, but a 2015 report from David Bogard, a security analysis, stated that the level of staffing since October 2014 had deteriorated.[5]
References
[edit]- ^ a b "Corrections Officers from the Virgin Islands Attend BOP Training ." Federal Bureau of Prisons. November 2, 2016 . Retrieved on November 3, 2016.
- ^ a b "Bureau of Corrections" (Archive). United States Virgin Islands Department of Justice. Retrieved on May 19, 2010. Alternate link
- ^ a b Blackburn, Joy. "Corrections transfers 78 inmates to mainland prisons" (Archived 2015-03-22 at the Wayback Machine). Virgin Islands Daily News. October 1, 2014. Retrieved on December 9, 2015.
- ^ Blackburn, Joy. "Justice: V.I. has failed to fix prison" (Archived 2015-03-22 at the Wayback Machine). Virgin Islands Daily News. March 10, 2014. Retrieved on December 9, 2015.
- ^ Blackburn, Joy. "Report: Jail conditions worse than ever Staff shortages, lack of supervision, falsified reports among the issues" (Archived 2015-08-18 at the Wayback Machine). Virgin Islands Daily News. July 15, 2015. Retrieved on December 9, 2015.
