RICHMOND, Va. — Dozens of people gathered at the Richmond City Justice Center Wednesday for the Richmond Sheriff's Office's eighth annual Day of Grace, Faith, and Hope.
Multiple faith leaders, community members, and deputies completed a lap around the city jail to signal support for the inmates and staff who live and work inside.
“Our goal here in 2025 is to continue to enhance and enrich the lives of those individuals that we watch over every day," Richmond Sheriff Antionette Irving said before leading the walk.
Seven ministers led the group in seven different prayers, calling for rehabilitation and transformation of those incarcerated.
"I pray in the name of the Lord Jesus that their minds would be renewed, and that the guilt and the shame, that they'll be able to get past that and that they will become a viable citizen in our community," one faith leader said.
Attendee Marlon BaCote said he spent 23 years behind bars due to crimes tied to his addiction. Now, he's a recovery specialist helping people through the same problems he used to face and was just accepted into a PhD program.
One of his books is available to inmates in the jail, and he often meets with them for programming and counseling.
“To spend the first day of the year here at jail where I spent most of my adult life means so much, because now I'm on the other side inspiring hope, faith and grace with the sheriff who cares about the citizens and, most importantly, the inmates and their family inside," BaCote said. “That hope is that we can recover and we recover together.”
But the challenges to recovery are ever present, Irving said.
Currently, she said the jail is servicing up to 60 inmates with substance use issues through a medication assisted treatment program.
Her office is receiving $300,000 in city funds for opioid abatement efforts, but she said that doesn't meet the need.
“It’s not enough. I'm finding that we have the funding, but medication costs. We're going to have to have counselors, and then we also want other staff members that we can grow this program to make sure they're getting everything that they possibly need," Irving said.
During the event, the sheriff also acknowledged the adversity she's faced in recent years.
She's struggled with a staffing shortage, as many correctional facilities across the country have in recent years, throughout her term. Irving is still grappling with 150 vacancies out of 386 total positions, but she expressed optimism about her efforts to improve the numbers.
Additionally in 2023, the state board that oversees jails placed the facility under a compliance plan due to multiple security failures that were identified after an investigation into a string of inmate deaths in 2022 and 2023. That plan is set to expire this year if all goes well.
“We haven't had any hiccups that I'm aware of. We haven't had any bad news from the jail board, so we're working hard to make sure that we stay in compliance," Irving.
New in 2025, Irving said the facility will have security upgrades that make it easier for officers to complete inmate checks and rounds as well as new technology for searches and scans of what's coming into the jail.
On Wednesday, she announced her intent to run for re-election in 2025. Irving is now in the eighth year of her second term.
She also called on the new mayor administration and new city council members to support her office, something she said city leadership didn't do enough of when she came under scrutiny last year for concerning jail operations.
"My biggest hope for '25 is that the leadership here in this city can finally join together and get some things accomplished. We always talk about how the fight is with council, what the fight is with the mayor, what the fight is with the government, what the fight is with the state, but the fight is here. The fight starts with each and every one of us," Irving told attendees at the event.
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