House Bill 2105 (substitute) would require regional jails and their primary law-enforcement agencies to adopt memoranda of understanding (MOUs) establishing rules for reporting and promptly investigating serious violent incidents that occur in regional jail facilities.

Sponsor Delegate Kent said the bill focuses on a narrow set of violent offenses — murder, manslaughter and similar crimes — and aims to ensure a prompt, trained law-enforcement response when such incidents occur inside a regional jail. "So each kind of local regional jail and their their primary law enforcement agency would kind of lay out how they want that to look," Kent said. "...a prompt investigation would have to start with the regional jail reporting to their primary law [enforcement] that this incident's occurred and then that law agency would then go forth in investigation."

Elizabeth Tribble, Commonwealth’s Attorney for Richmond County, testified in support and described a case where a stabbing in a regional jail was not known to outside agencies for 10 days, complicating prosecution and victim protection. "My job is public safety and I requested this bill because there are some of my constituents who need to be kept safe and they live in the regional jail," Tribble said.

Committee counsel said MOUs are used elsewhere in the code, particularly in education titles, and the substitute directs regional jails and primary agencies to create agreements defining roles and timelines. The committee voted to report the substitute, 4 to 2.