Alabama authorities vowed Thursday to begin the monumental task of fixing their troubling prison problems, responding to a U.S. Department of Justice report that condemned excessive violence, inmate deaths and a critical staffing shortage in the state correctional system.
The Justice Department on Wednesday gave the state 49 days to respond with a remedial plan or face a federal lawsuit for conditions so bad the department believes they violate the prohibition on cruel and usual punishment.
“I think it’s an enormous task we have in front of us,” said state Sen. Cam Ward, head of a legislative prison oversight committee. He called the findings “deeply humiliating” for Alabama. “It’s disgusting. I mean, it is.”
The federal report released Wednesday reeled off a chilling litany of examples of violence: An inmate died after being stabbed while other prisoners banged on a locked door for help. Another prisoner was strangled, left face down so long that “his face was flattened” by the time his body was discovered. Another prisoner told of being tied up and tortured for two days by fellow inmates in retaliation for reporting a sexual assault.
The Department of Justice wrote that overcrowding, understaffing, excessive violence, a failure to stop sexual assaults, poor facilities and the indifference of officials were among the factors creating what it called inhumane conditions in Alabama’s prisons.
Gov. Kay Ivey said Thursday that the state recognizes the problems in state prisons and said the Justice Department identified many of the same concerns the state has already acknowledged. She suggested that the state will do what is needed to avoid court-ordered mandates.
“This is just reinforcing the need we’ve been seeing all along. This is an Alabama problem. It’s got to have an Alabama solution and we’ll be addressing that in fast order,” Ivey said.
Prison staffing was a key concern of federal investigators.
(Associated Press, copyright 2018)
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