Chase Linko-Looper For Kanawha County Magistrate Judge

The South Central Regional jail is packed so tight people sleep on the floor like cattle, and overdose deaths in Kanawha County keep rising while the courthouse keeps feeding bodies into cages.

Crisis of Incarceration

West Virginia now locks up over 11,000 people statewide, with county jails running at more than 120% capacity as of 2025. Kanawha alone pushes hundreds into cells for low-level charges while violent offenders with cash bonds walk free. The system punishes poverty while letting wealth write the rules. Nearly 80% of folks jailed here sit waiting on trials they can’t afford to bond out for. That’s not justice, that’s ransom.

Drugs and Survival

Fentanyl killed over 1,500 West Virginians in 2024, the worst overdose rate in the nation. Kanawha County lost more sons, daughters, and neighbors to poisoned supply lines than to car wrecks or murders combined. Courtrooms keep stamping people with criminal records instead of getting them treatment. The current pipeline guarantees relapses, more coffins, and whole families ripped apart.

Poverty and Criminalization

Nearly 20% of West Virginians live below the poverty line, and Kanawha County reports eviction filings in the thousands each year. Police haul in people for trespassing, shoplifting, unpaid fines, and other scraps of survival. Courtrooms here don’t weigh context, they grind it into dust. A magistrate who rubber stamps every citation is nothing but another gear in the machine chewing up poor folks.

Race and Inequality

Black residents make up less than 4% of West Virginia’s population yet face nearly 12% of arrests statewide. Disparities grow sharper in Charleston where traffic stops, drug charges, and probation revocations hit communities of color hardest. Court records show the imbalance; daily dockets prove it. Ignoring this reality is complicity.

My Pledge

No one belongs in a cell for addiction, poverty, or mental health struggles. Every case should start with the question: how do we repair harm, not how do we destroy another life. Pretrial detention should be the rarest exception, not the default. Cash bail has to go. It is a ransom system that punishes the poor and rewards the rich. No one’s freedom should depend on their wallet. Community service, treatment programs, housing support, and conflict resolution must replace handcuffs, shackles, and court fees that trap people in cycles of debt.

Transparency and Accountability

Magistrates in this county too often act like rubber stamps for prosecutors and cops. Dockets run like assembly lines with barely a glance at the human beings standing in front of the bench. That ends in this hypothetical vision. Every hearing deserves time, dignity, and clear explanation. Courtrooms should be open, records accessible, and decisions written in plain language people can understand.

The courthouse has become a conveyor belt of broken lives, while overdose rates climb, jail cells overflow, and poor families keep paying the price. A different pathing exists. One rooted in rehabilitation, restoration, and reform. But it takes a magistrate willing to smash the lockstep routine, end cash bail, and demand humanity in a system built on punishment.