Alabama’s New Prisons Planned For Bibb, Elmore and Escambia Counties
Alabama officials announced Thursday the location of three new regional prisons planned for Bibb, Elmore and Escambia counties.
In a statement, Governor Kay Ivey’s office said the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) will now enter into negotiations with two private developer teams who will build the facilities and lease them to the state. ADOC will still operate and staff the prisons, but the private developers will be responsible for long-term maintenance. Officials said they will announce financial details of the project in late 2020, after final negotiations.
The new prisons will replace several existing male facilities, which are chronically overcrowded, understaffed and violent. ADOC is currently under a court order to improve conditions and hire roughly 2000 correctional officers. It is also in negotiations with the US Department of Justice to address violence among both inmates and staff.
“It is no secret that the ADOC is facing real, longstanding challenges, most of which are decades in the making and rooted in inadequate, crowded, and structurally failing facilities,” ADOC Commissioner Jeff Dunn said in a statement. “Building new facilities that improve safety and security for staff and inmates and allow for effective inmate rehabilitation is the right and only path forward.”
Some lawmakers have voiced concerns about a lack of transparency and a lack of involvement in the construction planning process. Many critics have also argued that new, larger prisons will not address the root issues facing the prison system. In a statement Thursday, the advocacy group Alabamians for Fair Justice said the state should focus more on sentencing reform and alternatives to prison.
“A prison plan focused only on building more cages will only serve to feed the prison industrial complex, resulting in the disproportionate incarceration and exploitation of even more Black and Brown people to pad the pockets of private prison corporations,” the group said.
In Thursday’s announcement, the governor said the new prisons will provide more space for programming and recreation, and the buildings will be designed with more cells, rather than open dormitories found in many existing facilities. She said the ADOC faces $1 billion in deferred maintenance costs to continue using its current male prisons.
According to the plan, CoreCivic, a national private prison company, will build two of the new facilities, in Elmore County and Escambia County. The prison in Bibb County will be developed by Alabama Prison Transformation Partners, a group that includes Birmingham-based construction company BL Harbert International. Previously, officials said the new prisons will house between 3000 and 4000 inmates.
Editor’s Note: BL Harbert International sponsors some programming on WBHM, but our news and business departments operate independently.
How Alabama’s first commuted death sentence this century came about
Robin "Rocky" Myers has been on Alabama’s death row for more than 30 years. Then, on February 28, he became the first Alabamian this century to have his death sentence commuted.
Steve Reich has always been to able to hear the pulse
The 88-year-old composer, who talks as fast as the interlocking phrases of his music, looks back on crucial moments in a career that moved minimalism into the mainstream.
There’s a lot to unpack in ‘Black Bag’ — a witty, sexy spy thriller
Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender play a high-ranking spy couple in Steven Soderbergh's new film. Black Bag offers Bond-style globe-trotting intrigue and marital dramedy.
Photos: Across the U.S., sky gazers marvel at the blood moon lunar eclipse
As the moon moved through the shadow of the Earth, it was also being illuminated by light from the sun — causing the moon to appear as if dipped in a deep red hue in a stunning celestial sight.
Hamas says it’s willing to release the five American hostages in Gaza
Hamas, the militant group the U.S. has labeled as terrorists, says it's willing to release the one living American hostage and bodies of four others it's held in Gaza since the 2023 attacks in Israel.
Dorothy Thompson: The journalist who warned us about Hitler
Dorothy Thompson saw the rise of Nazi Germany as a foreign correspondent in Berlin. A new series from Radio Diaries tells the story of Thompson's career as a radio broadcaster.
