Norfolk Jail's Fascinating Facts
GENERAL: The Norfolk City Jail is an inner-city facility that is the largest and one of the most overcrowded jails in Virginia. Despite those challenges, the jail has earned the distinction of being accredited by the Virginia Law Enforcement Professional Standards Commission. In addition, it consistently rates as one of the best run jails in the state in terms of inmate care, efficiency, fiscal responsibility and overall management.
STAFF: The Norfolk Sheriff’s Office, which managers the city jail, has 387 sworn staff and 63 civilian staff.
AVERAGE POPULATION: 1329 residents/inmates for 2010.
MEAL INFORMATION: The Norfolk City Jail served nearly 2 million meals in 2008. The total number was 1,886,861, including 2991 special diet trays, 21,666 diabetic trays and 84,068 bag lunches.
INMATE PROPERTY: The Norfolk Jail staff receives, protects and manages all clothing, funds and other personal property items collected from inmates entering the facility. In 2009, more than 15,000 property items were received nearly 16,000 items were released
MEDICAL INFORMATION: In 2009, more than 13,000 inmates were seen by the jail’s medical staff. A total of 4,392 assessments were made by our licensed mental health staff for mental health evaluations.
WORK ORDERS: 4,102 work orders were completed in 2009, which includes 1,992 plumbing, 751 electrical and 223 painting projects.
LAW LIBRARY: The jail’s law library staff received 1,113 visits, completed about 1,275 research requests and dispensed more than 23,500 copies of legal documents.
AGE: The average age of the jail population is 34 years old. The youngest resident in the survey was 15 years old and the oldest was 66.
GENDER: 90% of the inmates are male and 10% female.
MARITAL STATUS: More than half of the inmates are single (66%). 17% are married. 10 % divorced and 7% reported being separated.
EMPLOYMENT: 59% of the inmates reported being employed prior to jail and 41% report being unemployed.
RACE: African Americans make up 82% of the jail inmates. Caucasian offenders are 18%, Hispanic 0.8% and Asian/Indian 0.2%.
BIRTH INFORMATION: Over half of the residents (64%) in the Norfolk City Jail were born in Norfolk. 23% were born in Virginia, outside of Norfolk. 4% of those were born in Virginia Beach, 4% in Williamsburg/Newport News, 3% in Chesapeake/Suffolk, and 1% in Richmond. 13% of the inmates were born out of state, with the largest numbers from New York (4%) and North Carolina (3%).
EDUCATION: 10% of jail inmates have completed some college education. Nearly half of the jail inmates (41%) have completed their high school education or have their GED. 17% have completed the 11th grade; 18% the 10th grade; 7% the 9th grade; 4% the 8th grade; 3% grades 5 – 7.
VISITATION: The Norfolk City Jail had 41,600 (3,453 a month average) family members visit inmates in 2009.
WARDS: 5% of Norfolk jail residents report they live in Ward 1. 14% are from Ward 2; 23% from Ward 3; 29% from Ward 4 and 11% from Ward 5. (See graph below.) The top three neighborhoods are Park Place: 10%, Norview: 7% and Berkley 5%.
This information is based on a survey completed by inmates at the Norfolk City Jail and jail records on October 15, 2010.