Of the headaches Bob Riley will inherit when he takes over as
Alabama's governor on Jan. 20, perhaps the one most likely to become a
migraine is the state's underfunded and overcrowded prison system.
"The whole system is broken, from one end to the other, and not
because people who are working in it aren't doing the best they can,"
said Rosa H. Davis, Alabama's chief assistant attorney general.
Across the state, roughly 1,600 inmates have been in county jails
more than a month, awaiting the next available prison bed. Frustrated
sheriffs -- facing expensive and dangerously crowded conditions in their
own facilities -- have lately resumed taking busloads of inmates and
simply leaving them at Kilby Correctional Facility near Montgomery,
first stop for most of those entering the state prison system.
Montgomery County Circuit Judge William Shashy said Thursday that the
unscheduled dumping of inmates must stop, but allowed sheriffs to bring
an extra 100 inmates a week to Kilby beyond what the Department of
Corrections has authorized, as long as there is notice and the transfer
is "orderly." Prison officials aren't sure where they'll put the new
prisoners.
Meanwhile, U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson has called Tutwiler
Prison for Women near Montgomery a "ticking time bomb" because of
overcrowding. Responding to a lawsuit brought by inmates, he has set a
Dec. 30 deadline for the state to deliver an improvement plan for
Tutwiler, where nearly 1,000 women occupy an old, crumbling facility
designed for 400.
Other lawsuits are gnawing at the state Department of Corrections,
alleging, among other things, unconstitutional neglect of prisoners'
medical care. Law enforcement officials worry openly about the
possibility of prison riots because of overcrowding and a shortage of
correctional officers.
At a time when state government is particularly hard up, Mike Haley,
the prison commissioner, believes Alabama must spend an extra $144
million a year to meet basic staffing and infrastructure needs of its
prisons.
"We're finally having to pay the piper for 30-plus years of neglect
of the Alabama prison system," he said in a phone interview.
Haley's budget increase would pay for nearly doubling the number of
correctional officers, to meet the national inmate-to-officer ratio. But
it wouldn't cover a new women's prison and a new maximum security prison
-- at a minimum of $60 million each -- that he and others say Alabama
needs to alleviate overcrowding.
"You need to beef up the Pardons and Paroles Board, expand community
corrections programs throughout the state, and the sentencing laws need
to be changed. And if you do all that, you're still going to need two
more prisons," said Buddy Sharpless, executive director of the
Association of County Commissions of Alabama, which has been in
litigation with the state for years over the backlog of inmates in
county jails.
The fundamental problem, according to Sharpless, Haley and others, is
that Alabama long ago fell in love with get-tough sentencing but has
been loathe to pay for the prison system such a philosophy requires.
Since the early 1980s, Alabama's inmate population has grown from
under 8,000 to more than 27,000. That 264 percent gain occurred as the
state population grew just 14 percent.
The soaring inmate total owes in part to long mandatory sentences for
repeat offenders. But legislators have also toughened penalties for drug
crimes. Last year, more people went to Alabama prisons for unlawful
possession of a controlled substance and felony DUI than for any other
offenses.
Hamp Baxley, a criminal defense lawyer in Dothan, recalled a client
who was on probation after serving time for robbery. The man, whom he
would not name, had a $20-an-hour mechanic's job, and was supporting a
wife and children. Then one night he got picked up for DUI. Because of
Alabama's strict probation requirements, he ended up going back into the
state prison system, leaving his wife and children to fend for
themselves.
"That's one bed I'd rather see go to a violent offender," Baxley
said. "He made a mistake, so take away his license and make him go to
alcohol rehab. But he needs to be home working."
Annual appropriations for the Department of Corrections have
increased from $62 million to $200 million in the last two decades. But
Alabama still ranks 50th among states in per inmate spending, badly
trailing its neighbors. Tennessee devotes $500 million a year to its
prison system, which has 9,000 fewer inmates than Alabama's.
Legislators acknowledge the need for more spending, but also the
political realities in a conservative, low-tax state where education and
other public services are also desperately in need of funds.
"As far as my constituents coming up to me and saying we need to do
something about prisons, I rarely hear it, except from sheriffs and
people in the courthouse," said state Sen. Jack Biddle, R-Gardendale,
and a member of the Legislature's prison oversight panel. "But something
has got to be done."
Two obvious and related consequences of corrections-on-the-cheap are
deferred maintenance and overcrowding.
"Tutwiler is literally falling apart, and it's indicative of the
whole system," said Sharpless. "There has been absolutely zero attention
paid to the infrastructure at the state Department of Corrections."
Virtually every one of Alabama's prisons exceeds the number of beds
for which it was designed. Tutwiler has gotten the most attention, but
several men's prisons rate higher on the system's "overcrowding index."
Kilby, for example, was designed for 440 inmates but according to DOC's
October report held about 1,300.
Alabama would need at least two average-size prisons to accommodate
the state inmates awaiting transfer from county jails. The prison system
agreed in 1998 to take inmates within 30 days of conviction, but has
routinely been out of compliance because of lack of space.
"Everybody, all the counties and sheriffs, have been extremely
lenient and thoughtful and accommodating for all these years. Now
they're getting tired of it," Sharpless said.
He predicted that sheriffs will continue to move inmates to Kilby
whether DOC is ready for them or not, and will continue litigation
against the department. The suit filed by counties and sheriffs because
of the inmate backlog goes back to 1992.
Other litigation against the prison system looms, much of it dealing
with inmate health care, where Alabama also spends far less than most
states.
Currently, Alabama devotes about $35 million a year, with most of
that going to a for-profit Birmingham firm, NaphCare Inc., which is
under contract to provide necessary treatment. Georgia spends four times
as much on an inmate population that is one-and-a-half times larger than
Alabama's.
A Tuscaloosa attorney, William Murray, is trying to get class-action
status in federal court for a suit he filed claiming DOC and NaphCare
have been slow and in many cases unwilling to treat serious illnesses
and injuries. The alleged neglect amounts to "cruel and unusual
punishment" forbidden by the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,
Murray said in his suit and an interview.
Another suit claims DOC and NaphCare have been specifically negligent
of Alabama prisoners with HIV. The women prisoners' suit over conditions
at Tutwiler has lately been amended to include complaints about
inadequate medical care.
Earlier this year, a separate lawsuit forced DOC and NaphCare to
agree to improve medical care for inmates handling hazardous waste at a
prison recycling center at the Elmore Correctional Facility near
Montgomery. Just last week, a Montgomery County judge gave DOC a
deadline for making sure NaphCare abides by the agreement.
NaphCare has defended itself in court, but company officials did not
respond to requests by the Mobile Register for comment about the pending
suits.
Haley said he is not qualified to comment on the quality of
NaphCare's work, but noted that an outside consultant has been
monitoring the company for DOC. He would not release reports filed by
the consultant, Jacqueline Moore and Associates of Chicago.
"Because of ongoing litigation, our legal staff is of the opinion
that this is, for the time being, protected information," Haley said.
Representing inmates in the Tutwiler suit and two others pending
against DOC is the Southern Center for Human Rights, an Atlanta-based
prisoners' advocacy group. Tamara Serwer, an attorney there, said the
Southern Center is not picking on Alabama, but merely responding to
problems caused by overcrowding and under funding.
"I'm not aware of another state that is in as much of a crisis with
its prisons as Alabama," she said. "And at a time when incarceration
rates are dropping in much of the country, Alabama's are still rising."
Law enforcement officials are, if anything, more dire in their
assessments of Alabama's prison system than prisoner rights' groups.
"We're at the Titanic stage right now," said Bobby Timmons, executive
director of the Alabama Sheriffs Association. "We're fixing to tip and
go down."
Timmons worries openly about jail and prison riots. He and others
also speak of the possibility of sweeping, federal court-ordered
reforms, something that happened in the late 1970s under the late U.S.
District Judge Frank Johnson of Montgomery.
The overcrowding problem could be eased by increased paroles, more
community corrections programs and sentencing reforms, said Allen Tapley,
executive director of the Sentencing Institute, a nonprofit prison study
group affiliated with Auburn University Montgomery.
Tapley praised Mobile, which has a drug court and community
corrections program, as setting an example for how to keep at least some
non-violent offenders out of state prison. And he noted that the rate of
increase of the inmate population dropped markedly for a few months last
year, thanks in part to an extra parole board docket funded by a
temporary grant.
But Tapley agreed that Alabama must at least build a new women's
prison, and must also spend significantly more money to find safe ways
of suppressing the prison population.
"We just don't have an adequate probation and parole system," he
said. "We've got 175 cases per (probation) officer. You can't accomplish
public safety with that number."
The prisons issue caused barely a murmur in the governor's race
between Riley and incumbent Democrat Don Siegelman. Riley's "Plan for
Change" floated the possibility of paying other states to take Alabama's
overflow of inmates, an idea Siegelman publicly entertained but never
followed-through on.
Riley has committed to no specific reforms or promises of new
prisons. But he is aware of the severity of DOC's problems, said
spokesman David Azbell. Choosing a DOC commissioner -- Haley has asked
to stay on -- is a priority, he added.
"DOC is not only on the radar, it's very close to being directly in
the sights. It's a critical position that has to be filled," Azbell
said.
But he added that Riley is unlikely to do what some have suggested
and call a special session of the Legislature early next year to address
prison conditions.
Special session or not, Riley will have to grapple with DOC's
problems soon, said Sharpless.
"He ain't going to have much time to think or do studies."
