Alabama Prisons

Prison Reform Package Backed by Ivey Promises Better Rehabilitation and Oversight

MONTGOMERY — Gov. Kay Ivey has endorsed a package of criminal justice reform bills as a way to respond to systemic problems within Alabama's prisons system. There are five bills and one joint resolution, as well as a recommendation to increase funding for prison education programs by $4.2 million and improve access to mental health care. Read more. Earlier reporting on this topic: Legislature to Get Bills Addressing Needs of Alabama’s Troubled Prisons

by Caroline Beck, Alabama Daily News

Legislature to Get Bills Addressing Needs of Alabama’s Troubled Prisons

MONTGOMERY -- In her state of the state address to open the current legislative session, Gov. Kay Ivey praised the work of a study group she appointed to “address the needs to rehabilitate those within our prison system” and said she looked forward to working with lawmakers “on bills specifically designed to address some of these issues.” Now it looks as if the rubber is about to hit the road. State Sen. Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, one of six legislators on the prison study group and one of the Legislature’s experts on the overcrowded and violence-plagued prison system, said a package of prison bills that Ivey’s office is putting together could come forth next week, Ward said he said he may be the Senate sponsor of some of the bills. He also said he plans to hold hearings on the package before the Senate Judiciary Committee, of which he is chairman. As described generally by Ward, the measures in the package reflect some of the recommendations of the study group, which issued a report earlier this year. The governor’s office said it had no comment.  Read more. 

by Tom Gordon

Construction, Welding, GED: The Impact of Prison Education

WBHM Across Alabama, state inmates are getting GED certificates, learning to fix cars, and even how to code. As Alabama faces mounting pressure to reform its prison system, many state leaders want to increase funding for these educational programs. Read more.

by Mary Scott Hodgin, WBHM

Study: Diversion Programs Work – When They Don’t Sabotage Participants

In a state where overcrowded, violence-racked prisons have been a longstanding issue, there are alternatives to prison — diversion is the common umbrella term — that are supposed to keep some offenders out of the system and give them help they need to stay out. These diversions take the form of entities such as drug courts, veterans courts and community corrections. In many instances, these alternatives to prison are successful. But a new report states that in far too many cases, they hinder rather than help those they are supposed to serve. “The perverse reality is that diversion programs actually drive many of the behaviors and circumstances they were devised to mitigate,” states “In Trouble: How the Promise of Diversion Clashes With the Reality of Poverty, Addiction and Structural Racism in Alabama’s Justice System,” a study by the Alabama Appleseed Center for Law & Justice that was released Monday. Read more.

by Tom Gordon

Alabama to Close Most of Holman Prison

By WBHM The Alabama Department of Corrections is accelerating plans to close most of Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore. Officials made the announcement Wednesday, citing growing maintenance costs and safety concerns at the 51-year-old prison. Read more.

by Mary Scott Hodgin, WBHM

Prisons Officials Request $42 Million Increase to Hire Staff, Improve Healthcare

Officials from the Alabama Department of Corrections and the Bureau of Pardons and Paroles presented their budget proposals to lawmakers Thursday ahead of the upcoming legislative session. ADOC Commissioner Jeff Dunn requested a $42 million increase, bringing the agency’s total General Fund budget to $563 million. Dunn said much of the additional money will be used to recruit 700 more security staff, increase funding for inmate healthcare and hire about 100 mental healthcare professionals. Read more.

by Mary Scott Hodgin, WBHM

Prison Study Group Aims at Rehabbing the Convicted Before Turning to Prisons

UPDATED MONTGOMERY — Gov. Kay Ivey’s prison study group held its last public session Tuesday, with lawmakers on the body calling for more resources to keep potential inmates out of the state’s overcrowded, understaffed and violence-plagued prison system, as well as other steps to reduce the existing population and better equip those who leave the system to never return. “I’ve got to come up with a report that says, ‘This is where we have unanimity, this is where we have differences of opinion,” said former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Champ Lyons. At Ivey’s request, Lyons has chaired the Governor's Study Group on Criminal Justice Policy. He was scheduled to meet with Ivey on Tuesday afternoon. Lyons said the group’s report should be complete and made public in a week or 10 days. The study group, whose members also included state Finance Director Kelly Butler, Corrections Commissioner Jeff Dunn and a stand-in for Attorney Gen. Steve Marshall, began its work last summer. Charged with helping the state better address the prison system’s problems, it has reviewed major litigation facing the system, visited some of the state’s prisons and discussed the shortage of correctional officers. Read more.

by Tom Gordon

Prison Contract Bidders Donated to State Leadership

A Florida-based group that is among four teams of developers that will submit proposals for a massive project to build and maintain three new Alabama prisons gave $67,500 to Gov. Kay Ivey, Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth and 26 legislators during the 2018 election cycle. Companies or individuals associated with all four of the development teams contributed to candidates during the 2018 elections, but the Geo Group Inc., based in Boca Raton, Florida, and its political action committee were by far the biggest donors. After the Geo Group’s $67,500, the second-largest total of contributions to statewide and legislative officeholders from companies or individuals associated with the prison-development teams was $28,250. That money was given by John White-Spunner of Mobile, president of White-Spunner Construction Inc., a partner in the development team led by Corvias LLC of East Greenwich, Rhode Island. Ivey and the Alabama Department of Corrections announced last month that the teams of builders, architects, designers and other specialists had qualified to make proposals for upgrading the state’s aging, crowded prison system. Read more.

by Glenn Stephens

Relatives of Alabama Inmates Call on Prisons Task Force to Improve Conditions

On the third floor of the Alabama State House in Montgomery, Dothan Pastor Kenneth Glasgow read aloud the names of 21 men who have died in Alabama prisons this year. Sandy Ray then showed a photo of her son Steven Davis, who was beaten to death two months ago by correctional officers at Donaldson Correctional facility. “My son was beat,” Ray said. “We don’t do our dogs this way. Please, please, we have to have change.” Glasgow and Ray were among several prison reform advocates who gathered Wednesday ahead of a meeting of Gov. Kay Ivey’s study group on criminal justice policy. Read more.

by Mary Scott Hodgin, WBHM

Governor’s Study Group Meets on Prison Operations

Gov. Kay Ivey’s Study Group on Criminal Justice Policy convened Wednesday in Montgomery to discuss operations of the Alabama Department of Corrections. Earlier in the day, the group toured Staton Correctional Facility in Elmore County, one of the state’s 15 major correctional facilities. “It’s crowded. It’s hot,” group chairman Justice Champ Lyons said of the prisons tour. “They have fans, bunkbeds, lights that stay on 24/7. You learn to sleep in the daylight.” ADOC is largely understaffed and overcrowded, with record high levels of violence and suicide. In addition to an ongoing lawsuit about the mental health care and medical care of inmates, the department also faces the threat of federal intervention, following the April publication of a scathing Department of Justice report that detailed gruesome conditions in state prisons. Ivey appointed the criminal justice reform group in July to study issues that plague the system. The group will develop reform proposals ahead of the 2020 legislative session. Read more.

by Mary Scott Hodgin, WBHM