A longtime senior correctional supervisor at St. Clair Correctional Facility in Springville, Alabama, was arrested for drug trafficking a day after multiple overdoses, including fatal overdoses, at the prison facility.
The Alabama Department of Corrections announced that on July 30, 36-year-old Quarell Henry and 37-year-old Rakeivian Deet were found unresponsive in housing areas at the prison. Both men were pronounced dead soon afterwards. EJI received multiple reports that the men overdosed and that multiple other men had suffered nonfatal overdoses.
St. Clair lieutenant Calvin Bush was arrested on July 31 and charged with promotion of prison contraband and trafficking fentanyl and marijuana.
ADOC officials reported that during a search of Mr. Bush’s home, investigators recovered a considerable amount of illegal drugs and other contraband, including 8.9 pounds of methamphetamine, 19 pounds of marijuana, 100 grams of crack cocaine, and 156 cell phones. A related search found an additional 2.5 pounds of marijuana and 60 grams of methamphetamine.
The estimated value of the contraband seized is over half a million dollars.
Calvin Bush had been employed by ADOC since 2016 and was promoted to the rank of correctional sergeant and then to correctional lieutenant while working at St. Clair. As a lieutenant, he was one of the senior supervisors at the prison and had the authority to select where officers on a given shift would work as well as to direct when and where officers searched for contraband.
Mr. Bush’s arrest is part of mounting evidence that the crisis in Alabama’s prisons is driven in significant part by corruption and serious misconduct at the leadership level. He is one of several corrections officers, including a warden and deputy warden, who have been arrested or fired for trafficking drugs and other contraband into Alabama prisons.
Correctional supervisors have been arrested and charged with bribery and using their position for personal gain for taking money from incarcerated people in their custody.
High-ranking ADOC officials and staff have left the department amid allegations of sexual misconduct, and Alabama correctional officers have been convicted of federal crimes, arrested by state officials, or dismissed following brutal assaults on incarcerated people.