Public safety and parole aren’t mutually exclusive

  There are two elements critical to a functioning prison system. Security and hope.

  Alabama doesn’t do well on either.

  Start with security. At the most basic level, a prison needs doors that lock. This was a problem in at least one state correctional facility in recent memory. But security also means that staff and inmates don’t have to live under a constant threat of physical harm.

The path not taken

  My wife and I spent the Sunday afternoon of Memorial Day weekend hiking near Lake Martin in Dadeville.

  From a stunning view of the lake, we walked through a canopied forest with all kinds of rocks, ridges, and flora. The trail took us to the lake shore, where we took in the vistas and the $1 million homes all around them.

  It’s a reminder of how many natural jewels we have in Alabama. And it’s free. All you have to do is drive there and start walking. No painful real estate investment required.

Mayhem, violence and death — but not “corrections”

  We need prisons. They should confine violent felons and people who steal, whether from a convenience store or a pension fund.

  But by every legal, financial, and humanitarian standard, the Alabama Department of Corrections is a failure. By the most basic measure of prison operations, Corrections isn’t doing its job.

  Before any other consideration, prisons must be safe for staff and inmates.  And they ought to offer those in the cells an opportunity to reform, even if the incarcerated never step outside the barbed wire again.

Alabama’s death penalty depends on darkness

  Back on the morning of Jan. 26, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall praised the state’s prison officials for a “textbook” nitrogen gas execution.

  “The [Alabama Department of Corrections] deserve a great deal of thanks and credit for being willing to be the one to step up, first in the country to do so,” Marshall said, adding that he suspected “many states will follow.”

  This is what happened. Kenneth Eugene Smith convulsed for two minutes and gasped for at least seven more as he choked to death.

Keeping Alabama’s prisons in darkness

  I don’t know what constituency supports gouging prisoners’ families.

  Is there a well-adjusted person whose vote depends on making prison phone calls as expensive as shame will allow? Or in restricting contact between the incarcerated and their loved ones, making it more likely they’ll re-offend?

  But there’s Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s name on a petition to the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, next to 13 other Republican attorneys general outraged that the federal government would try to stop an unnecessary cost.

Alabama can’t build its way out of the prison crisis

  There’s a concept in transportation called induced demand.

  Say you have a four-lane highway running through a city. It’s jammed with vehicles.

  So officials widen the road to six lanes, to ease congestion and driver stress.

  Does that relieve traffic?

  Yes. But only for a time.

  Within a few days or weeks, the roads will be crowded again.

The Alabama Legislature needs to care about the prison crisis

  Something Rep. Marcel Black said has stuck with me for years.

  We spoke a decade ago about Alabama’s endless prison crisis. It seemed as far away from resolution then as it does today. I asked Black, a longtime House Judiciary Committee chair, why it proved so intractable.

  Black gave me this example. Suppose the state builds a new prison. Is an Alabama state legislator going to use it in a campaign? Will you open your mailbox and find a flyer of your representative or senator, smiling in front of fencing and barbed wire? 

Inaction on prisons comes at a great financial and societal cost

  At a time when political discord is at a high, there’s one thing that Alabamians should be able to agree on: Alabama’s prison system needs immediate reforms. The current system is outdated, understaffed, overcrowded, and plagued by violence.

  The problem is that state leaders can’t agree on what those reforms should be. The consensus is that new facilities are a must, but the legislature has missed numerous opportunities to put a plan into action. In 2019, Gov. Kay Ivey took control, announcing that the state would contract with private companies to build three new men’s prisons.

  But as that plan moves forward, questions remain. Ivey’s plan isn’t popular with citizens, legislators are concerned about the cost, and some residents oppose the selected prison sites.

Cruel Confinement: Abuse, discrimination and death within Alabama’s prisons

  An investigation by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program (ADAP) has found that for many people incarcerated in Alabama’s state prisons, a sentence is more than a loss of freedom. Prisoners, including those with disabilities and serious physical and mental illnesses, are condemned to penitentiaries where systemic indifference, discrimination and dangerous – even life-threatening – conditions are the norm.

Cameron Smith: The Best prison sentencing reform you heard nothing about

  Since Alabamians will vote September 18th on a measure designed to prevent the “mass release of prisoners,” every voter should know about a change in Alabama’s prison sentencing enacted during the last legislative session. The new law, which garnered little attention outside of Montgomery, may provide a meaningful remedy for a portion of the budgetary issues facing Alabama’s prisons and the state General Fund.

  Alabama’s prisons face significant pressure from a number of sources. The annual cost to house an Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) inmate was $15,118.30, as recently as fiscal year 2009. When multiplied by the 32,000 inmates housed in 29 facilities statewide, the budgetary impact becomes apparent. More importantly, the U.S. Bureau of Justice statistics show that Alabama’s state prisons are operating at nearly 200 percent of their physical capacity to hold inmates. This overcrowding increases danger to prison staff, may result in costly litigation, and creates significant pressure to build costly new facilities.