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.
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.
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.
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.
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 number of older people in Alabama’s prisons more than doubled in a little over a decade, according to a policy brief published recently by the Prison Policy Initiative, an advocacy group.
The Institute, using numbers from the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, reported that 15% of the people under Corrections’ jurisdiction, about 4,300 people, were 55 years old or older in 2019. In 2007, it was slightly more than 2,000 people, or 7% of the total population incarcerated at that time.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall got sued last week over some comments he made a year ago about the state’s near-total abortion ban.
Marshall went on a radio show last year to suggest that assisting an Alabama woman’s efforts to get an abortion out of state was “potentially criminally actionable.”
Physicians and clinicians say that read of the law violates their free speech, due process, and travel rights if they share any sort of information about abortion or reproductive care outside Alabama (still legal, to varying degrees, in about 35 states).
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?
Jenny Eisenberg is an unemployed writer – but not by choice. The market she writes for has “dried up,” and her husband, who holds a doctorate in literature, also cannot find work due to a saturation of academics pursuing few opportunities. Their financial situation is “not the best,” and providing for a family of six has led them to live off food stamps.
At the same time, states across the country are using their share of the $350 billion in State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds from the American Rescue Plan Act to support families and businesses struggling from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, to maintain vital services, and to invest in communities.
But in Alabama, rather than focusing on poverty, education equity, or affordable housing, the Alabama Legislature directed $400 million of its $2.2 billion in COVID relief to help fund the construction of three new mega-prisons, further embracing a failed system of mass incarceration that for generations has disproportionately harmed communities of color and people living in poverty.
There were two major issues not resolved during the just-completed regular legislative session. Gambling and prisons were left on the table.
It is foolish to not garner some revenues for the state from gambling. However, it is not imperative that the problem be solved.
The prison problem is another question. It has to be addressed. The federal courts will take over Alabama’s prisons and tell the governor and legislature what to do to resolve the crisis. The federal courts will win that fight every day of the week. They will act and give the legislature the bill for the expenses.
The 2021 legislative session has begun. It will be a monumental and difficult session. Due to COVID restrictions, the logistics of simply meeting will be a task. House members will be spread out all over the Statehouse to adhere to distancing requirements. It is still uncertain as to how the press' and lobbyists' accommodations will be handled.
A new virtual voting console system has been installed to allow House members to vote since all will not be on the House floor. There is a myriad of issues that have to be addressed. Last year’s session was abbreviated and adjourned before the halfway point due to the outbreak of the pandemic. Therefore, it has been almost a year since the legislature has met.
As the 2021 Regular Legislative Session looms, the 800-pound gorilla in the room is the prison issue. The situation has grown more dire because the U.S. Justice Department has now filed suit against the State of Alabama.
When Gov. Kay Ivey took office in January of 2019, she and the new legislature knew that they were going to have to address the prison problem in the state. Fixing prisons is not a popular issue. It wins you no votes to fix a broken prison system. Prisoners do not vote. However, victims of crime generally are voters, and they are adamant and vociferous in their belief that those who committed crimes should be put behind bars, locked up, and the keys thrown away.
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.
