In a new report yesterday on Alabama’s prison crisis, AL.com gave voice to the often-ignored perspectives of families who have lost loved ones to Alabama’s violent and dangerous prisons and asked what many Alabamians are wondering—-why has not much changed?
Reporter Ivana Hrynkiw obtained letters that family members wrote to Alabama’s Joint Prison Oversight Committee to plead for help and information about what happened to their loved ones.
“All share stories of loved ones dying in Alabama’s prison system,” she wrote, “and all come from families demanding help and change.”
Through the lens of personal stories from Alabamians whose loved ones have died in our state prisons, the report traces the problems in Alabama’s prisons and the State’s failure to make even the “easy fixes.”
“The state prisons are overcrowded and understaffed, while some of the buildings are falling apart. Too many inmates are raped and killed, drugs are readily available, and life expectancy falls at the entrance,” AL.com reported. “And the federal government, under multiple presidents, said all of this makes Alabama prisons unconstitutional in their cruelty.”
Following its extensive investigation into Alabama’s prisons for men, the U.S. Justice Department in 2019 and 2020 made recommendations to improve conditions, including a number of doable, affordable solutions that could have been implemented immediately—things like fixing broken locks.
But federal prosecutors reported at the end of 2020 that Alabama “has not made this easy fix,” leading the Justice Department to file a lawsuit that is set for trial next spring.
“There’s a cancer in the system”
Instead of implementing solutions to these problems, Alabama has committed more than $1 billion to build just one new prison, AL.com reported.
But federal prosecutors have made clear that “new facilities alone will not resolve the contributing factors to the overall unconstitutional condition of ADOC prisons, such as understaffing, culture, management deficiencies, corruption, policies, training, non-existent investigations, violence, illicit drugs, and sexual abuse.”
Changes that could help improve conditions are set out in AL.com’s report, which details a number of recommendations from federal prosecutors, families, and advocates, including EJI attorney Charlotte Morrison, who suggested that new leadership is needed to make a difference in the prisons.
“What we know is there’s a cancer in the system that hasn’t been treated, and then it’s going to be moved into this new system,” Ms. Morrison told AL.com. “I think it’s a real disservice to the officers to leave them without supervision, to give them these orders that (they) know (they) don’t have the staff to be able to implement.”
After EJI filed a complaint with the Justice Department about sexual abuse at Tutilwer Prison for Women, a federal investigation confirmed the prison’s “history of unabated staff-on-prisoner sexual abuse and harassment,” and recommended changes that were later formalized in a consent decree.
Alabama complied with almost of all of the requirements, AL.com reported, resulting in a dramatic turnaround.
Leadership and security
One of the reforms that worked at Tutwiler was a change in leadership. As Ms. Morrison told AL.com, the Alabama Department of Corrections brought in a new deputy commissioner whose job was to focus solely on Tutwiler.
“We can bring on additional supervisors to be on the ground at the facilities to help staff understand, ‘How do you manage this crisis?‘ Ms. Morrison said. “It does require bringing in independent supervision and leadership.”
Understaffing remains a system-wide problem, with ADOC Commissioner John Hamm reporting in 2023 that 28% of security positions and 18% of support staff positions remained vacant. Hiring is happening, AL.com noted.
But as Ms. Morrison suggested, Alabama could follow the lead of other states and hire social workers and other criminal justice professionals as supervisors or wardens, rather than restricting hiring to certified law enforcement officers.
Another fix that worked at Tutwiler is a simple one—install and monitor video cameras. AL.com reported that the federal government said ADOC needed to install a camera system within six months. That was six years ago.
“I don’t understand why we don’t have live monitoring of video feeds at the prisons,” Ms. Morrison told AL.com. “If you don’t have staff to put in a unit, contract with a live monitor and watch it, make sure those cameras are always functioning.”
Families, treatment, and programming
Given how many people in prison struggle with addiction, the number of spots available for addiction programs in Alabama’s prisons is, Ms. Morrison said, “minuscule compared to the problem.”
In addition to drug treatment, offering programs—including job training and education—is a win-win proposition, she explained. Keeping people occupied with positive programs is key to maintaining security in prisons, and programming can help prepare people to return home, which increases public safety in the community.
Currently, Alabama provides “virtually no re-entry support for people coming out having been raped, still having an ongoing addiction, dealing with this trauma,” Ms. Morrison told AL.com. “Men are coming out broken by abuse and violence, by addiction, with nothing.”
That leaves mostly poor families to shoulder the burden of re-entry on their own.
Getting families involved from day one—to help their loved ones understand what is expected of them and what programming, classes, and opportunities for rehabilitation and reform are available—is another low-cost change that would increase safety in Alabama’s prisons, Ms. Morrison pointed out.
Like in other prisons, ADOC could easily provide family movie nights or worship sessions as incentives for good behavior, which would reduce violence and disciplinary issues.
And plenty of volunteer groups are eager to come into prisons and teach.
Programming can be “low-cost and high-yield in terms of security outcomes,” Ms. Morrison said.
ADOC should see families as a resource to help address violence in state prisons, Ms. Morrison told AL.com, because “treating families as if they’re part of the problem is really jeopardizing the mission of the Department of Corrections to ensure public safety by decreasing the chances of recidivism.”
Families who flooded the state house with letters and calls for help for their incarcerated loved ones are hopeful that lawmakers will implement changes, AL.com reported.
One woman, who found out that her cousin was slain behind bars, wrote: “In this upcoming legislative session, please use the power you have to make Alabama prisons safer and ensure that family members of prisoners are treated like human beings, especially when they are in a crisis. We are counting on you.”
Drawing on past experience, Ms. Morrison also expressed hope.
“I think we turned Tutwiler from the most notorious women’s prison in the U.S. to a model within just a very short time,” she told AL.com. “I think we could do that. We could start with one prison… I think we could do it system-wide, but why not even just start with one of the prisons?”