Get the Daily News Digest in your inbox each morning. Sign Up

Mounting pressure to address violence in Alabama prisons working, lawmaker says at emotional hearing

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Committee Room 200 at the Alabama State House was packed wall-to-wall Wednesday with families of incarcerated Alabamians demanding lawmakers help address violence in the state’s prison system, with many expressing a sense of hopelessness.

Their outcry, along with mounting public and legal pressure, has already begun to make an impact, however, according to committee member Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, who told affected families during the hearing to “keep fighting.”

The July 24 meeting of the Joint Prison Oversight Committee saw a packed room at the Alabama State House in Montgomery.

Wednesday’s was the second public hearing of the Joint Prison Oversight Committee that gave affected families the opportunity to speak directly with lawmakers regarding the rampant violence within the state’s prison system, which remains among the most violent in the nation.

One by one, family members of incarcerated Alabamians were called to the podium by committee chair Sen. Clyde Chambliss, R-Prattville, to share their own personal experiences in dealing with the Alabama Department of Corrections.

Tim Mathis, among the first to speak, spoke to his own experience with his son, Chase Mathis, who died at Elmore Correctional Facility in June.

“My son, Chase Mathis, was placed in custody in 2016 from a car accident from a manslaughter charge; we had no idea at the time it was going to turn into a death sentence under the hands of the ADOC,” Mathis said.

“Extortion is rampant; I paid over $3,000 in the month of April to help keep my child safe. Now, Chase did have an addiction problem, but you can’t lock a drunk up in a liquor store and expect him to stay sober, it’s not going to happen.”

Tim Mathis speaks during a July 24 meeting of the Joint Prison Oversight Committee in Montgomery.

The extortion and drug use within Alabama’s prisons remained a constant theme among those that had signed up to speak. Pam Moser, whose son was killed at Staton Correctional Facility in October of 2023, was no stranger to either.

“It’s been just over nine months since my son Brian died in a state correctional facility,” Moser said. “He was savagely beaten and did not receive care.”

Moser’s son had been released on parole in 2017 after serving 13 years in prison for robbing a pharmacy, but was arrested a year later for possessing a pocket knife, a violation of his parole. 

He would remain incarcerated for the duration of his life, and would relay to Moser that he was frequently a target for violence.

“When people commit a crime, they lose their freedom, they don’t lose their humanity, they don’t lose their right as a human being,” Moser said.

Eddie Burkhalter, a researcher for the nonprofit advocacy group Alabama Appleseed, shared some data with the committee to illustrate just how deadly conditions had gotten inside Alabama’s prisons.

The death toll of Alabama inmates so far this year, Burkhalter said, had reached 161, on track to surpass the record-325 deaths in 2023, at least 10 of which were homicides, 13 suicides, and 89 overdose deaths. 

The state’s prison overdose mortality rate last year was 435 per 100,000 inmates, roughly 20-times greater than the national rate.

And understaffing at ADOC, Burkhalter warned, continued to be a strong contributor to the violent conditions within Alabama’s prisons.

“In 2017 during the Braggs mental health lawsuit, Judge Myron Thompson ordered ADOC to hire an additional 2,000 officers, (and) in 2019, then-commissioner Jeff Dunn stated his administration was ‘launching a robust workforce development program that continues to attract an increased number of candidates,’” Burkhalter said.

“Seven years since Judge Thompson issued the order, and nearly five years since Dunn’s statement, there has been a zero-net gain in correctional staff, according to a March filing in the lawsuit.”

Lawmakers have responded to ADOC staffing shortages by substantially increasing correctional officer wages, a move that has shown some moderate success in recruiting new officers. 

With two new 4,000 bed prisons currently under construction, however, Burkhalter questioned their usefulness given that a recent ADOC staffing analysis found the agency to still be more than 2,000 officers short.

“I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that taxpayers of Alabama deserve more information about how ADOC is going to staff a 4,000-bed prison given these facts,” he said.

Some of those who spoke said that they had family members who were brutally assaulted not by other inmates, but prison staff, such as Tomeka Hayes, whose son is currently incarcerated at Holman Correctional Facility on a robbery charge.

“I was contacted by an inmate via cell phone with pictures of my son beaten, skin scraped off his face, and I was advised that he was assaulted by your Correctional Emergency Response Team,” Hayes told members of the committee.

Shortly before the assault, Hayes’ son had suffered an unrelated injury and was forced to use crutches. That handicap, Hayes said, exacerbated her son’s injuries from the most recent assault.

“When I called the prison, they informed me that that was not true, that my son was just fine and that nothing had happened to him. So when I emailed the warden the pictures, his concern was how did I get the pictures, not if my son was okay.”

Attendees of the July 24 meeting of the Joint Prison Oversight Committee in Montgomery listen as affected family members give testimony to Alabama’s violent prison conditions.

Others recounted gruesome details of their loved ones’ experience in prison. 

Rosa Williams, whose brother has been incarcerated at Bibb Correctional Facility since 2014, described extortion between inmates at the facility.

“He has endured extortion, rape, stabbings, and most recently, had his teeth knocked out in a physical altercation,” Williams said. “Our family has been contacted multiple times with threats on his life unless we send money.”

Near the end of the hearing, England, after hearing the desperation in the affected families’ pleas for action, pointed to a number of changes that the mounting public pressure had already enacted.

One such example was Senate Bill 322, which established a 15-person team of liaisons to facilitate communications between incarcerated Alabamians and their families. Sponsored by Chambliss, the bill passed this most recent session and came as a result of the first public hearing of the Prison Oversight Committee in December.

Furthermore, the rate at which the Alabama Board of Pardons and Parole has granted parole has dramatically increased in recent months, from a record low of 8% in 2023 to an average monthly rate of 19% as of March, the highest rate since 2020.

While the Parole Board has not cited mounting public and legal pressure as the cause for the increased parole grant rates, England argued that pressure played at least a partial role.

“I just want to assure you that what you’re doing is making a huge difference; it may not feel like it at times, but it is, and I also say that because I want to encourage you to not just continue doing it, but to do more,” England said. 

“Push more, push harder, create more accountability, make sure that people cannot continue to hide from the grim reality that our prison system is unconstitutionally inhumane, and we need to do more.”

England reiterated his position after the meeting as well, telling Alabama Daily News that the thousands of emails, phone calls and letters from affected families are starting to materialize into real policy and procedure changes.

“The liaison bill is, at the very least, recognition that the efforts that are being put forth by the people are actually producing something,” England told ADN. 

“That’s why I kept saying over and over again, don’t stop; put more pressure, be more aggressive, call folks, because it is working. That bill is one example, rising parole rates are another example because people are paying attention.”

Get the Daily News Digest in your inbox each morning.

Name(Required)
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Web Development By Infomedia