Report: Southwest Virginia prisons with 2025 attacks have new wardens

An internal memo obtained by the Richmond Times-Dispatch shows several senior members of the Department of Corrections in executive positions have been replaced by the Spanberger administration.

Those moves include a change at the maximum security Wallens Ridge State Prison in Big Stone Gap with Rodney Younce appointed acting warden who had been serving as the agency’s head of emergency preparedness and logistics. Six gang members assaulted three corrections officers in May at Wallens Ridge with two guards stabbed repeatedly.

DOC leaders have also sent three wardens for administration duties at the River North Correctional Center in Grayson County. Senior officer Jeremy Hall was murdered by a facility inmate in November—the first fatal attack on a Virginia corrections officer since 1975.

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