.IChotiner speaks to a journalist about the historical roots of the current problems in Alabama’s prisons, why conditions have deteriorated in the past several years, and divisions among the prisoners about how far to take their current protest.
It’s interesting because it times out exactly as the Department of Justice has gotten actively involved in investigating Alabama’s prisons, releasing findings about the unconstitutional conditions, and then ultimately suing the state. You would think that the opposite would happen. You would think that things would improve. That hasn’t been the case.
Alabama does have parole guidelines, which are in our state code, and they include some evidence-based criteria, which, in theory, the board is supposed to use in rendering its decision. But this board is flat out ignoring its own guidelines, which it can do. It has total discretion.
Part of it is reactionary to a situation where a man named Jimmy O’Neal Spencer was paroled, and several months later was arrested for the murder of three people. Immediately, the Governor and the attorney general blamed this on the parole board and put a moratorium on paroles for a while, and issued all kinds of statements about how the board was in crisis and never should have let this person out. That’s when these changes happened.
It’s important to say that every single incarcerated person I speak to in the prisons is unanimous in the opinion that this agency is in total chaos and crisis. The prisons are in a humanitarian crisis, and they’re asking the Department of Justice to intervene. But, when you’ve got a work stoppage or strike, there are just differing opinions and all sorts of feelings and mind sets that are expressed.
The D.O.J. gave a window of time for Alabama to respond, and if the state did not respond there was the threat of a lawsuit. So Alabama responded, and they entered into talks to reach a consensus, and, when the D.O.J. decided to sue, in December of 2020, one of the reasons that it cited in its lawsuit was that they couldn’t reach a consensus. The talks fell apart, and, essentially, Alabama is arguing that things just aren’t as bad as the D.O.J. says.
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