State Lawmaker Calls For New Leadership Of Troubled Prison System
A view from outside Julia Tutwiler Prison, Wetumpka, Alabama.
The Alabama Department of Corrections has until Friday to present a plan on how it will meet a court-ordered hiring goal that the coronavirus and other challenges are impeding. U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson ordered the prison system to have more than 3,300 corrections officers on staff by February 2022. It’s part of an ongoing lawsuit over mental healthcare in state prisons which remain violent, overcrowded and understaffed.
The case is separate from negotiations with the U.S. Department of Justice. A Justice Department investigation in April 2019 alleged conditions in Alabama prisons were unconstitutional.
“It’s just an awful place to work,” said Democratic state Rep. Chris England of Tuscaloosa, who is a member of the Legislative Prison Oversight Committee.
English said pay is too low to attract enough new employees and conditions in prisons are horrible. The pandemic has added additional strains. The rapid spread of COVID-19 among prison staff concerned state leaders. England added the coronavirus appears to be spreading more widely among staff and inmates while only a small portion of inmates have been tested. About 100 prison staffers have been confirmed to have COVID-19. Two inmates have died and prison officials report 27 confirmed inmate cases.
Ivey’s office is evaluating proposals from private companies to build three new, larger men’s prisons that would be leased back to the state. The state’s final selection is expected to be announced later this summer. England said the prison system needs to “start over.”
“Put someone else in charge and start a plan that gives us immediate relief,” England said.
He said homicides and suicides have increased since the Justice Department report.
“Our plan cannot be ‘We’re going to have new prisons at some point in the future,’” England said. “If there were a checklist of failure, we probably hit all the markers at this point.”
On Tuesday, England said Ivey should call a special session to make changes to the criminal justice system, but he acknowledged there’s no consensus among lawmakers on what to do.
.@GovernorKayIvey, we need to have a special session on criminal justice reform. Since @USAttyTown came to Montgomery and told us that our prison system was worse than the death penalty, conditions have gotten worse. @ALCorrections and @ALBPP are working against reform.
— Chris England (@RepEngland70) June 9, 2020
“I would hope that each lawmaker would take a clear look at the current conditions, see the trajectory of incarceration and decide that it is imperative at this very moment that we do something,” England said. “Let that drive us instead of worrying about politics and being re-elected.”
How George Wallace and Bull Connor set the stage for Alabama’s sky-high electric rates
After his notorious stand in the schoolhouse door, Wallace needed a new target. He found it in Alabama Power.
FIFA president defends World Cup ticket prices, saying demand is hitting records
The FIFA President addressed outrage over ticket prices for the World Cup by pointing to record demand and reiterating that most of the proceeds will help support soccer around the world.
From chess to a medical mystery: Great global reads from 2025 you may have missed
We published hundreds of stories on global health and development each year. Some are ... alas ... a bit underappreciated by readers. We've asked our staff for their favorite overlooked posts of 2025.
The U.S. offers Ukraine a 15-year security guarantee for now, Zelenskyy says
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday the United States is offering his country security guarantees for a period of 15 years as part of a proposed peace plan.
Genre fiction and female authors top U.S. libraries’ most-borrowed lists in 2025
All of the top 10 books borrowed through the public library app Libby were written by women. And Kristin Hannah's The Women was the top checkout in many library systems around the country.
The Best Tiny Desk Concerts of 2025
Which Tiny Desk made an audio engineer question everything? Which one made a producer want to cry? Touch grass? Look back on the year in Tiny Desk, with the people who make them.
