More Alabama Prisoners Murdered in Overcrowded Lockups
After a string of killings at Alabama prisons blamed on overcrowding, the federal Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a statement of interest on July 7, 2024, in a long-running lawsuit over conditions at one state prison. With too few guards to adequately protect prisoners, DOC has called short-staffing a “major problem” since 2006. The overcrowded system held 20,986 prisoners in space designed for 12,115 at the end of June 2024 – an eye-popping 173% occupancy rate. Yet parole grants statewide remain ridiculously low.
Short-staffing and overcrowding prompted DOJ to sue the state in December 2020. That followed another class-action over woefully inadequate healthcare and mental health care that prisoners receive. A third suit class-action filed since accuses the state Board of Pardon and Paroles (BPP) of denying prisoners release so that they can be leased out to some 100 private firms which contract for their labor with the state Department of Corrections (DOC) at below-market wages, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Mar. 2024, p.32.]
Though the parole grant rate has improved over 2023’s measly 8%, BPP released just 408 prisoners between January 1 and August 22, 2024, representing 20.8% of those eligible. They included 40 released on detainer to another law enforcement agency—putting the real parole rate closer to 19.1%. The suit accusing DOC and PBB of colluding to exploit prisoners for their labor reasonably asks: How are they considered fit to work with the public in fast food restaurants and factories but unfit for parole?
The older suit, in which DOJ got involved, was filed by the non-profit Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) after six murders at St. Clair CF from 2012-14, seeking to force DOC officials to do more than just write reports chronicling dangerous the lockup’s conditions. There were another 249 reported assaults at the prison in 2016, and DOC settled the suit the following year. Yet the violence persisted, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Dec. 2018, p.24.]
In its statement to the federal court for the Northern District of Alabama, which is overseeing the case, DOJ stressed that state officials who knew about appallingly high levels of violence and sexual assault at the lockup should be guilty of deliberate indifference when they failed to take corrective measures. See: Duke v. Hamm, USDC (N.D. Ala.), Case No. 4:14-cv-01952. That could potentially include not only DOC officials but also BPP members denying release to so many parole-eligible prisoners.
It’s a problem universally acknowledged, yet when prisoner advocates showed up at a meeting of the state legislature’s Joint Prison Oversight Committee on July 24, 2024, there was no one from PBB to field their questions about the low parole rate. Sen. Clyde Chambliss (R-Autauga County) said he had invited PBB Chairwoman Leigh Gwathney 30 days in advance but shrugged off her absence with a promise to “get them an invitation earlier next time.”
Meanwhile the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit issued a unanimous en banc opinion in a separate case on July 10, 2024, which ominously raised the bar for prisoners alleging deliberate indifference under the Eighth Amendment; in the Eleventh Circuit, that now requires a showing that the official was “actually, subjectively aware that his own conduct caused a substantial risk of serious harm to the plaintiff.” See: Wade v. McDade, 106 F.4th 1251 (11th Cir. 2024).
Alabama’s DOC recorded five prisoner murders in six months between March and August 2024, including three at Limestone Correctional Facility (CF): Taurus White, 28, was killed on March 5, 2024, just a month shy of his release; Samuel Ward, 39, was fatally stabbed on March 23, 2024; and Brelin McAlpine, 26, was killed the same way on June 28, 2024. There was another murder at Donaldson CF on June 12, 2024, when Deandre Roney, 39, was fatally stabbed. Mitchell Ryan Monroe was found unresponsive at Elmore CF on August 25, 2024, with a head injury and abrasions on both legs. Yet another fatal stabbing claimed the life of Antonius Blount, 32, at Ventress CF on August 28, 2024.
Additional sources: Alabama Political Reporter, Birmingham News, EJI
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