Inmate Deaths Prompt Alabama Prisons To Take Steps to Curb Violence
About a week ago, William Smith got a phone call from the Alabama Department of Corrections. The corrections official told Smith his son, Michael, had been injured. Michael was an inmate at Ventress Correctional Facility, south of Montgomery.
“I immediately made arrangements to go down to the hospital, and he was on life support when I got there,” Smith says.

Alabama Department of Corrections
Michael Smith
Smith says Michael was brain dead. He died soon after they took him off life support.
“You don’t expect things like this to happen in prison,” Smith says. “You don’t expect people to die by the hands of others. Particularly those in position to guard and protect.”
Smith’s death was one of two inmate deaths announced Monday by the prison system. In Smith’s case, officials are investigating alleged use of force by prison staff. Two correctional officers have been placed on leave.
Alabama prisons have been mired in violence for some time, both violence among prisoners and involving corrections officers. But Corrections Commissioner Jeff Dunn says these latest deaths demand immediate action.
“We’re concerned about the level of violence in our facilities and we’re taking what we believe to be some aggressive steps to curb that violence,” Dunn says.
This week, Dunn created an internal task force to look into prison violence. Prison staff will be retrained in how to handle inmates, including de-escalation techniques. He says the department is accelerating plans to have correctional officers wear body cameras.
“We hope to pilot the introduction of body cameras for one of our facilities here in the very near future,” Dunn says.
Local advocates say they’re glad the department is making an effort, but they’re not completely convinced it will work.
“Are these actions just the DOC saying, ‘We’re doing something.’ Or are we looking at it from a systematic approach? Because it is a systematic issue,” activist Salaam Green says.
The Department of Corrections faces mounting pressure to reform state prisons, which are among the most violent in the country. More than 20 inmates have died this year.
What’s the deal with claims that birth control is dangerous?
Social media is full of videos saying hormonal contraception can hurt you and promoting natural alternatives. How did the treatments get such a bad reputation and do alternatives work?
Trump’s tariff revenue has skyrocketed. But how big is it, really?
President Trump's new tariffs are pouring in. But it's still only a fraction of overall government revenues — and falls short of new spending in the recent Republican megabill.
Factories are losing immigrant workers, stressing those who remain
Trump campaigned on helping American workers through his immigration policies. Now that he's revoked work authorization for thousands of immigrants, those left behind are feeling taxed by their absence.
Boston Public Library aims to increase access to a vast historic archive using AI
The library is launching a project in collaboration with Harvard Law School and OpenAI this summer to digitize the materials and make them more fully searchable.
Israeli strike kills journalists in Gaza City, worsening the death toll for the media
Israel's military targeted an Al Jazeera correspondent with an airstrike Sunday, killing him, another network journalist and other people, all of whom were sheltering outside the Gaza City Hospital complex.
UK police say more than 500 people arrested in pro-Palestinian events over weekend
Most of those detained were arrested for carrying signs supporting a pro-Palestinian group recently banned as a terrorist organization in the UK.