MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama’s prison system, which has been plagued with violent conditions and drug use due to understaffing and crowding, saw significant signs of improvement in 2024, according to some state lawmakers and officials, though much work remains to be done, advocates say.
“This year we’ve definitely seen some progress,” said Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, speaking with Alabama Daily News about the state’s prison system. England has been among the most vocal advocates for prison reform.
“For example, we went from an 8% parole rate to a 25% parole rate, which I think reflects a lot of different things. I think the efforts of the public to inform, to advocate and also expose issues within the system had a net positive impact on the process.”
Cam Ward, director of the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles, also commended the progress, but noted significant issues still remained, and likely would for years.
“I don’t think this is a sprint, I think it’s a marathon,” Ward told ADN. “It took us years to dig ourselves into this criminal justice hole, and I think it’s going to take us years to get out, but I think all of us involved in the criminal justice system, the fact that we have a Re-entry Commission where we’re talking about ways forward, we’re finally, for once, unified.”
Both violence and drug use have increased within Alabama prisons in recent years. In 2023, there were a record-325 deaths with Alabama’s prisons, 89 of which were overdose deaths, a 20% increase over the previous year.
The state has also faced mounting pressure from federal officials to improve conditions within its prisons. In 2017, a federal judge ordered the Alabama Department of Corrections to hire an additional 2,000 officers to address staffing shortages, though as of July. And in 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the state over its violent prison conditions, threatening a federal takeover should conditions not be improved.
In 2024, however, Alabama lawmakers and state agencies made several steps toward improving prison conditions.
The Board of Pardons and Paroles, for instance, which granted parole to a progressively smaller share of eligible inmates for six consecutive years, saw its parole grant rate skyrocket in fiscal year 2024 to 25% from 8% the previous year under mounting public and legal pressure.
While a significant increase, England said he would still like to reform the parole board to implement more guidance, and require its members to provide written explanations for deviating from its parole guidelines.
“There has to be some sort of bureaucratic element to the system so parole rates don’t rise and fall based upon either agendas or personalities, there has to be some element that’s repeatable and dependable so we can actually assess the results and get a good read on them,” he said.
Ward told ADN that he also viewed the increase in parole grant rates as an improvement for the state’s prison system, and attributed the increase in part to the state’s new inmate rehabilitation program, which has seen a renewed focus amid the state’s initiative to cut recidivism in half by 2030.
“We’re seeing (higher) parole grant rates due to one reason: we now have programming in place (for) drug treatment, mental health treatment and job training where the private sector is partnering with us, and the parole board has granted more people parole to those programs,” Ward said. “So I think that’s a big positive, and I think if we continue doing that, next year will be even better than this year.”
Corrections also made progress this year in staffing, graduating in December its largest class of new correctional officers in roughly a decade. The increase in applicants was attributed in large part to significant pay increases for correctional officers that state lawmakers implemented last year.
“There were 96 corrections officers who graduated and are going to be entering into our system now, and that’s the largest class in almost a decade, so there’s signs of progress in recruitment as well,” England said. “One of the major issues obviously is (ADOC being) understaffed, so the more people you can put in the system, the safer it is for everybody, and the less likely you will see the rampant abuse and corruption that goes on within our system.”
John Hamm, ADOC commissioner, told ADN at the correctional officer graduation ceremony earlier this month that applications for correctional officer positions have increased significantly, and that his agency’s recruitment efforts have improved.
“We’re getting really good at hiring,” Hamm told ADN. “We have a lot of interest, we have a lot of applicants.”
As of September, ADOC had a custody population of 21,022, whereas its current prisons have an inmate capacity of around 12,115. State leaders are hoping to improve prison conditions with the construction of two 4,000-bed prisons, though the effect on capacity will be minimal, given that the state intends to close facilities with roughly an equal amount of beds.
State lawmakers also adopted a new law this year that will help facilitate communication between inmates and their family members or loved ones, Senate Bill 322, sponsored by Sen. Clyde Chambliss, R-Prattville. That bill, which went into effect in June, creates a team of more than a dozen ADOC employees to provide family members and loved ones of incarcerated Alabamians up-to-date information.
That bill came largely as a result of public outcry during a hearing of a Prison Oversight Committee in late 2023, where affected Alabamians recounted their struggles in receiving information on their loved ones’ physical conditions in prison.
Alabama Appleseed, a nonprofit criminal justice reform advocacy organization, aggressively promoted and advocated for that bill. Carla Crowder, the organization’s executive director, said the passage of the bill was a significant step forward for the state, and that overall, progress has been made this year.
“I agree that for the first time in many years, there has been some progress, particularly with parole grant rates,” Crowder told ADN. “What we’re seeing is multiple stakeholders from multiple branches of government realizing that this is a crisis, but we can take steps toward improving conditions (and) making the system fairer without compromising public safety.”
However, Crowder said that while the progress was commendable, the improvements seen in 2024 could only be considered “baby steps” given the scope of the problems.
“In the nearly six years since the Department of Justice issued that scathing report detailing the torture, abuse, deaths and corruption in our prisons, the response, generally, has been quite tepid, other than to throw $1.2 billion at prison construction and millions more at defending the state against lawsuits,” she said. “So it’s about time.”
Efforts to continue the momentum in improving conditions within Alabama prisons will be ongoing, with England planning on refiling a number of bills in 2025, from the aforementioned effort to reform the parole board, to other proposals that would reform criminal sentencing.
Despite filing his criminal justice reform bills for at least the last three consecutive years, none have become law. Still, England said he plans on refiling his criminal justice reform bills in 2025, if for nothing else, he said, to continue the conversation around reforming the state’s criminal justice system.
“Obviously, you want to get the legislation passed because otherwise, there’s really no reason to sponsor it,” England said. “But at the same time, they do create conversations that have changed minds and perspectives. So aspirationally, you want to get it passed, but short of that, continuing to force the conversations has brought a huge difference in a lot of the things we’re doing in our criminal justice system.”
Going forward, Crowder said that reasonable solutions state leaders could consider next year for improving prison conditions include streamlining enrollment in Medicaid and Medicare for inmates being released from prison. Crowder would also like to see the parole board more closely track data related to inmates that are released on parole, data that could be later used to help improve the parole system’s rate of success.