Alabama prison staff shortage worsens despite court order

 1664581637 
1676275995
At least 22 people have died while incarcerated at the Donaldson Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison in Jefferson County, Alabama.

Donaldson Correctional Facility is a maximum security prison in Jefferson County, Alabama. It's one of the prisons affected by overcrowding and understaffing, issues that officials hope new mega-prisons will alleviate.

Gigi Douban, WBHM

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A federal judge said Friday Alabama prisons remain critically understaffed, with court filings showing the number of officers in state lockups has continued to drop despite a court order to increase numbers.

The prison system has lost more than 500 security staff employees over the last 18 months, according to court filings.

“We had horrendous understaffing in this department and something has to be done,” U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson said during a status conference in the long-running lawsuit over prison health care.

In 2017, Thompson found that mental health care in Alabama prisons is so inadequate that it violates the U.S. Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. He said understaffing is one of the root issues and ordered the state to increase the number of corrections officers.

William Van Der Pol, a lawyer representing inmates in the lawsuit, told Thompson that Alabama has fewer correctional officers than when the litigation began or at any point where they could find comparative numbers.

The state has used pay raises and recruitment efforts to boost officer numbers, but has been hindered by a tight labor market, Bill Lunsford, a lawyer for the state argued.

Thompson asked the two sides to compare current staffing levels to what they were in 2014 when the case was filed.

Van Der Pol, an attorney with the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program, told Thompson that based on available numbers the prison system is at its “lowest number in history” for officers working at major facilities.

“It has kind of fallen off a cliff for lack of a better word. It has dropped from 1,800 officers down to a little over 1,300 in the last year-and-a-half … They are a lower number today than they have ever been,” Van Der Pol said.

Lunsford said the state did not dispute the numbers but called it a misleading “soundbite.”

He said the tight labor market has many industries searching for workers and that that is a “difficult headwind” for the state’s effort to hire and retain staff. Increasing staffing has been a priority for the department, said Lunsford.

Between 2019 and 2021, the state added more than 1,000 security staffers through recruitment and retention efforts that included pay raises and bonuses, according to Lunsford.

“This is not a story of total failure. There have been successes,” he said.

Thompson said blaming the low unemployment rate was an excuse and suggested that the department may need to again raise the salaries of correctional officers to recruit the needed workers.

Lawyers for Alabama wrote in a court filing that prisons had the equivalent of 1,392 correctional staff members on Sept. 30, 2022, after losing 528 correctional staff since April 1, 2021.

On March 31, 2021, they had 1,920 staff members, according to earlier reports filed by the prison system. The numbers included dozens of cubicle operators, who are responsible for door controls, but are not certified officers. Lawyers for inmates argued cubicle operators should not count in total security staffing numbers.

While lawyers for inmates argued the current staffing numbers are a record low, state attorneys argued in a court filing that it is difficult to compare 2022 and 2017 numbers because of changes in prison operations.

 

Trump administration uses taxpayer dollars to blame Democrats for government shutdown

Federal employees across the government reported seeing similar messages. Experts say the messages may violate ethics laws meant to keep partisan politics out of day-to-day governing.

A lawsuit tries to block the Trump administration’s efforts to merge personal data

A class action lawsuit argues that the administration's efforts to combine databases of personal information on Americans violates privacy laws and the Constitution.

Here’s what a shutdown means for Smithsonian museums, memorials and the zoo

History tells us visitors will likely find shuttered doors at major cultural institutions. But they will also find plenty of alternatives.

‘I can’t stop DJing,’ Mark Ronson says — never mind the back pain

Ronson's memoir, Night People, is a love letter to late-night 1990s New York City. Ronson would go on to produce music for Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga and other pop superstars.

Pasta meals from Trader Joe’s and Walmart may be linked to a deadly listeria outbreak

The USDA says the precooked pasta products, sold at Trader Joe's and Walmart, could be connected to a nationwide listeria outbreak that has killed four people and sickened at least 20 others.

Spotify’s Daniel Ek announces that he’ll step aside as CEO

The founder of the world's biggest music streaming service says he'll remain at the company as Executive Chairman, and will be replaced by two co-CEOs.

More Front Page Coverage