Mark Warner visits inmates at the Chesterfield County Jail as part of an addiction treatment program

CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) — Senator Mark Warner (Democrat of Virginia) met with inmates at the Chesterfield County Jail on Tuesday as part of the county’s Helping Addicts Recover Progressively (HARP) program.

Warner spent the afternoon talking to inmates and hearing their stories about how they ended up in prison and how HARP helped them overcome addiction.

Warner spoke about how Chesterfield’s approach to addiction treatment and rehabilitation is different from how law enforcement handled those issues when he was governor of Virginia in the early 2000s.

“When I was governor, people like (Chesterfield Sheriff Karl Leonard) and (Major Eric Jones) weren’t here. It all depended on who was the toughest in fighting crime,” Warner said. “The whole concept of re-entry was that maybe people were blatantly stating it, but they didn’t do anything.”

The HARP program was founded by Sheriff Leonard in 2016 and has since become very popular. Program was the subject of a discovery+ documentary released in 2022 and in 2023, country singer Jelly Roll visited Chesterfield Prison to meet program participants.