Tampon Ban Policy Documents and Incident Reports

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, I hereby request the following records:

- The complete policy documents or regulations relating to tampons that were to have taken effect on Oct. 6, 2018, outlined in the New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/25/us/tampons-ban-prisons-virginia.html?action=click&module=In%20Other%20News&pgtype=Homepage&action=click&module=Latest&pgtype=Homepage
- Any incident reports or logs documenting the "many instances" where, according to the New York Times story above, "visitors have attempted to smuggle drugs by concealing (tampons) in a body cavity"

The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.

In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 5 business days, as the statute requires.

Please note that I am a citizen of Virginia, and am using MuckRock's services to help manage and track my request.

Sincerely,

Tom Nash

Hi Ryan,

My residential address is 1100 Carrolton St. Richmond, VA 23221. I trust that with this information you will be able to fulfill this original request, as submitted two weeks ago.

Thanks

Tom

Hi Ryan,

Ideally the timeline should be based on the incidents that the DOC say provide justification for this policy. I don't know what that timeline is without the documents, so I'd suggest reviewing the draft materials and seeing what timeline they use.

Maybe just to start, let's limit this request to incidents that date one year prior to the date on the draft policy materials.

Thanks

Tom

Hi Ryan,

This request involved two parts. The first was for: "The complete policy documents or regulations relating to tampons that were to have taken effect on Oct. 6, 2018, outlined in the New York Times." I hope you are continuing to prepare those documents for release soon?

I would also encourage you to consider whether the section you're highlighting truly covers people who are in fact visiting people imprisoned by DOC, and not themselves imprisoned.

Thanks

Tom

Thanks for this, Ryan. To be clear, the NYT article stated in its first sentence that tampons and menstrual cups would have to be removed by visitors. I'm not seeing the words "tampon" or "menstrual cups" in either of these documents.

I appreciate your help and clarification on this.

Thanks

Tom

Hi Ryan,

On Oct. 29 I pointed out that none of the documents you provided appear to be responsive to the request -- they do not appear to mention tampons. I asked you to review them and verify that they are?

Thanks

Tom