Marcus Grubbs, 39, was killed at Kilby Correctional Facility in Montgomery, Alabama, on Wednesday. He had served nearly 23 years of a 25-year sentence for a robbery that occurred when he was 16 years old. He was due to end his sentence in two years.
Mr. Grubbs is at least the sixth person to be killed in an Alabama prison this year.
In 2021, 11 people were killed in the state’s prisons—a rate of fatal violence nearly five times higher than the national average, according to the most recent data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
At least 70 incarcerated people have been killed in Alabama prisons since the Justice Department began investigating conditions of confinement in the state’s prison system.
The federal investigation concluded that Alabama’s failure to protect incarcerated people from violence and sexual abuse violates their constitutional rights.
The Justice Department found that the constitutional violations in Alabama’s prisons are driven by deficiencies in numerous areas, including inadequate staffing and supervision, severe overcrowding, inadequate control of drugs and weapons, and ineffective prison management. These factors create dangerous conditions with “a high level of violence that is too common, cruel, of an unusual nature, and pervasive,” federal prosecutors found.
Despite the continuing crisis in Alabama’s prisons, no significant changes have been implemented to improve conditions or safety.