More than 200 prisoners are among the people hired for work related to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the Alabama Department of Corrections. All are working for SG & S Oil Recovery Product LLC, which is based in Baldwin County, according to Brian Corbett, a spokesman with the corrections department. Reported by Alabama Live.

At least 75 of the inmates were trained in Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response, also known as HAZWOPER, on Dauphin Island between May 13 and 16, while another 73 are being trained this week, Corbett said. Another 59 inmates in Loxley are making boom, he said.

The facility in Loxley is a Department of Corrections work-release center. SG & S owner Jay Graddick, who launched his new business after the leak, said he has been using work-release inmates for two years on construction sites.

He said he placed an ad in the Press-Register several weeks ago, looking for oil relief help, and offered $8 to $10 per hour, but “didn’t get a single phone call for somebody looking for a job.”

He said the work-release inmates are reliable. “It’s almost impossible for them to steal anything,” Graddick said. “They’re not walking around talking on cell phones. They’re orderly, because repercussions are harsh. I’ve had less problems with these guys than when I’ve hired just normal people.”

Dauphin Island Mayor Jeff Collier and the town’s police chief, George Goodwin, said they were not notified when the inmates were sent to training classes at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab. Collier said a call to the chief would have been “appropriate.”

Corbett said the inmates are low-risk, nonviolent offenders nearing the end of their prison terms.

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill has left many in the seafood industry out of regular work.

Bayou La Batre Mayor Stan Wright was critical of a contractor that would hire inmates “when you have people who don’t even have a traffic ticket on their record” looking for work.

“I’m all for rehabilitating criminals, but we need to put these daddies and mamas that have small children at home that have responsibilities and put them to work.”

Collier said he did not believe that working inmates would affect tourism on Dauphin Island, but he agreed that those most directly affected by the spill should be a priority for jobs.

“If we’ve got local people who have been hit by this and need work, we need to start closer to home,” Collier said.

Graddick wants local workers, too, saying, “if a guy walks up, and he’s willing to do the work, I’ll hire him.”

Inmates are not the only ones being trained on Dauphin Island. Collier said as many as 1,500 people are doing oil relief work there on any given day.

The state’s work release program is designed to “reintegrate” prisoners into society, Corbett said. Inmates can be hired upwards of a year before their release date. Corbett said inmates must be offered “prevailing wages,” and the Department of Corrections retains 40 percent of that money. Prisoners can use the rest to pay fines, restitution, child support or even save it for spending when they are released.

“We have an obligation to return them to the community as best we can,” Corbett said. “If an employer chooses to utilize work-release labor, that choice is up to the employer.”

Corbett said it was unclear whether the inmates would be put to work on the island after their training is finished.

jchev Alabama, Work Release

jchev Alabama, Budgets, Economic Issues

Making the punishment fit the crime – as reported in the Montgomery Times Daily.

Alabama’s corrections commissioner said he’s given up on ever having enough money to build facilities for alternative programs to help keep nonviolent inmates from returning to prison. But Commissioner Richard Allen said without the money to build new LIFE Tech centers around the state, he’s putting the program at existing facilities, including Decatur Work Release facility. Corrections added 200 beds for the program in space originally used for other purposes at the Decatur facility for men in 2008.

But LIFE Tech is just one example of several programs the state is trying to reduce the prison population and keep offenders from coming back later.

Not everyone agrees on whether people sentenced to prison should have alternatives to “hard time.” Others say with bulging, outdated prisons and a prison population that only gets larger, Alabama has little choice but to look at other programs for solutions.

Allen said Alabama must try alternatives. He asks a question that has become a cliche in the corrections field but makes a point about the choices people sending others to prison must make.

“Do we want to reserve prison beds for people we are afraid of or do we want to fill them up with people we are mad at?” he asked.

Allen said he believes people who commit violent crimes belong in maximum security prison, but nonviolent offenders might pay their debt to society more effectively elsewhere.

Technical violators are one example. People on probation who fail to meet with their probation officer, fail a drug test or miss a restitution payment often go back to prison. Allen said such violators would be appropriate for community technical violation programs instead.

As the state tries drug courts, alternative sentencing and community corrections to reduce the prison population, some lawmakers say the state is headed in the right direction.

But other legislators say while the state has desperate prison overcrowding, they still need data showing long-term results on different programs to know what works best.

Allen said Decatur’s LIFE Tech-style program for men combines substance abuse treatment, counseling, reading skills/GED preparation and job preparation with incarceration. Most nonviolent inmates serving time in state prison have those needs, he said.

Lauderdale County District Attorney Chris Connolly is among people who think that some offenders the state classifies as nonviolent should start out in prison.

Connolly said he was surprised and frustrated that a Florence woman did not serve at least five years of her sentence before she became eligible for parole. The parole board denied her early release.

Connolly said the woman sold drugs near a school and a day care center. Some of her customers are in maximum security prison while she is at Birmingham Work Release Facility. “Is that really nonviolent?” Connolly asked.

Allen said the issue of where inmates go to serve their time is under constant review. District attorneys and judges do not always agree that something other than maximum security prison is the right way to go.

Alabama counties that account for 83 percent of all prison sentences now have community corrections programs. Allen said he wants the alternatives in all counties.

“We are doing everything we can to reduce the population but we’re averaging 62 more per month coming in than a year ago,” Allen said.

But 40 percent of new inmates have split sentences that require a specific amount of prison time served before they are even eligible for parole.

The state buys beds in a private therapeutic inpatient program in Columbiana, a private prison in South Alabama and in some county jails that agreed to lease the state bed space.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Marcel Black, D-Tuscumbia, said Alabama needs to find a way to make the punishment fit the crime.

Some crimes demand that the offender do hard time, Black said. But there is a “very, very serious overcrowding problem” in prisons, Black said, and the state must look for alternatives.

“We have to find a way to be smart in sentencing,” he said.

Another legislator who worked in law enforcement for 25 years, including time as an FBI hostage negotiator and an Alabama court referral officer, agrees.

Rep. Mac McCutcheon, R-Capshaw, said the state is trying a number of programs right now.

“We need to see results from several years to know how successful they are,” McCutcheon said.

“I am definitely not opposed to the idea of alternative programs. I feel like we are headed in the right direction but we don’t know yet which ones work best and which ones interact most effectively,” he said.

jchev AL Montgomery County, Alabama, Community Corrections, Inmate Programs

The cash-strapped Alabama Department of Corrections hopes to strike it rich by drilling for oil on prison property. Story from the Huntsville Times.

Prison Commissioner Richard Allen said Tuesday the department has signed a five-year contract with Foote Oil & Gas Properties of Gulf Shores to explore for oil near the G.K. Fountain Correctional Center in South Alabama. “It would help a lot,” said Allen. “Every dollar we get would be put to good use.” Under the contract, the department has already received $400,000, plus a guarantee of 25 percent royalties and a $300 bonus per acre on any oil or natural gas the company should eventually extract.

Andy Farquhar, director of Alabama Correctional Industries, said petroleum engineers asked to conduct seismographic surveys of the property a couple of years ago. “They came back and said their surveys showed some hot spots in the area of the prison and they wanted to nominate some land in the area for oil and gas exploration,” said Farquhar. The engineers believe the area around Atmore might be an offshoot of a crude oil reservoir that extends from Mobile up the west side of the state. Private property owners in the area also signed contracts with Foote.

Foote was the only company that responded to the state’s request for proposals to explore 15 prison-owned tracts totaling 800 acres, said Farquhar. So far, two 16,000-foot wells, one on the property of Fountain, a medium custody prison on Alabama 21 near Atmore, and another right outside the gates, have hit dry holes. Farquhar said the first well on the Fountain property found some oil, but not enough to justify drilling deeper. The company is now drilling a third well on prison property, about 2 miles northwest of the prison. If that one fails to yield oil, Farquhar said it’s unclear whether a fourth well will be drilled.

The drilling is being overseen by Laurel, Miss.-based Venture Oil & Gas and Tri-Star Petroleum of Houston. Farquhar said the drilling costs the companies about $1 million for each well. Allen said the department sold some farm property at nearby Holman Correction Facility for $100,000 and put that with the $400,000 from the oil and gas lease to add 125 new beds at the Easterling Correctional Center, a medium security prison in Clio.

jakking Alabama, Economic Issues

Strapped for money, Alabama will remove about 250 inmates from the privately run prison where two men recently escaped amid a string of security failures, state Prison Commissioner Richard Allen said Monday, reported the AP.

Strapped for money, Alabama will remove about 250 inmates from the privately run prison where two men recently escaped amid a string of security failures, state Prison Commissioner Richard Allen said Monday. Money was behind the decision by the Department of Corrections to give up a contract with LCS Corrections Services Inc. at the end of the current fiscal year, Allen said. In an interview with The Associated Press, Allen said his agency can’t afford to continue housing 250 inmates at the Perry County Detention Center … He said it would be difficult to find space for them in state lockups, “but we don’t have the money to continue keeping them over there” …

Allen said the department will both encourage parole officials to increase early releases to help make room for the prisoners and look for new spaces in which to house inmates coming back to state lockups from the private prison. Allen said all the inmates should be back in Alabama prisons by the end of September, the close of the fiscal year. “We’re real tight on space right now, and we’ll be working them in where they can,” said Allen …

Designed to hold 13,403 men and women, Alabama’s prisons were bulging with 24,781 inmates at the end of April, according to Department of Corrections reports. Overcrowding forced the state to put about 250 male inmates at the Perry County prison in March, Allen said. The state pays $32 daily to house an inmate at the private prison, which is considerably less than the average cost of $41.71 a day that it costs to keep someone in a state prison. But the state doesn’t have money budgeted for private prisons in the fiscal year starting Oct. 1, Allen said, so it must bring the inmates back and find ways to hold them in state facilities.

jakking Alabama, Early Release, Economic Issues, INTERNATIONAL, Private Prisons

Alabama Department of Corrections officials unveiled on Friday a new, improved and larger hemodialysis unit at St. Clair Correctional Facility, a move that they said would save taxpayer money and staff time.  Reported by the Birmingham News.

Hemodialysis involves machines which function as a kidney when someone’s own kidneys fail to perform their function of removing waste and excess water from blood. The St. Clair prison is the main hemodialysis center for the Alabama prison system and its eight-chair clinic had been servicing about 40 patients on a six-day-per-week, three-shift schedule. Starting Friday, a 21-chair clinic, in its own building, will replace the old unit and Naglich said it could mean up to $2 million in annual savings for the financially strapped corrections department …

Building and equipping the facility cost $1.3 million, which Corrections raised through the sale of land it no longer had use for. The old clinic, part of the prison infirmary, had 5,000 patient visits last year, Porter said.

jakking Alabama, Inmate Health Care

Without fanfare, the Alabama Department of Corrections has released its first inmate under a new law that allows for medical furloughs of geriatric, incapacitated or terminally ill prisoners who meet certain requirements. Report from the Birmingham News.

According to the department, the inmate released was Omar Shariff Rahman, a 56-year-old who was serving life without parole at Donaldson Correctional Facility. “Having met required release criteria — determined to be geriatric and terminally ill — he was released to the care of his family on Tuesday, April 21st,” a department statement said. In an e-mail, Corrections spokesman Brian Corbett said he understood that Rahman died about 30 hours later …

Under the regulations devised to carry out the Alabama Medical Furlough Act, a geriatric inmate is 55 or older, “suffers from a chronic life-threatening infirmity,” a life-threatening illness, or from “a chronic debilitating disease related to aging” and poses no danger to himself or society. The regulations define a terminally ill inmate as someone “deemed to have an incurable disease that would, within reasonable medical judgment, produce death within 12 months.” The regulations also define an incapacitated inmate as someone suffering from “a permanent, irreversible physical or mental condition” that prevents him from being involved in a crime or from committing violence, and needing help to meet his daily living and health care needs.

The medical furlough law took effect Sept. 1.

jakking Aging Population, Alabama, Early Release, Inmate Health Care

The following editorial was published this weekend by the Montgomery Advertizer:

Gov. Bob Riley gave the Alabama Legislature a second chance to take the responsible course on funding Alabama’s prison system, but once again lawmakers put political expediency ahead of doing the right thing.

Riley sent the Legislature’s proposed state General Fund budget back to lawmakers Thursday with executive amendments that, among other things, reduced what legislators could spend on their pet pork-barrel projects and increased funding for the prison system.But the House and Senate both voted later that day to reject the governor’s executive amendments. So the $2.5 billion General Fund budget will go into effect in the new fiscal year starting Oct. 1 as originally passed by the Legislature.

That will leave the Department of Corrections with $366 million allocated for operations in the coming year, an increase of about $7 million over the current year but still about $6 million short of what the governor said the agency needed to operate. But legislators, who face re-election next year, made sure they put money aside for pet projects back in their home districts. So while prisons will be underfunded, lawmakers made sure they will have money they can designate for such things as UFO Days in Fyffe and the Ider Mule Day.

If this was the first time the Legislature had underfunded prisons, the Corrections Department probably could ride the year out. But this is a recurring problem, and the repeated tight budgets have taken their toll on the prison system. Alabama’s prisons house almost twice the number of inmates they were designed to hold. The ratio of corrections officers to inmates is far too low – so low, in fact, that some corrections officers have expressed concerns for their safety and the safety of the public. Prison officials have been forced to sell state lands in order to raise funds for badly needed deferred maintenance.

Against that backdrop, Riley’s office had warned that the Corrections Department might be forced by a federal judge to release prisoners early to alleviate overcrowding. If that happens, and if, heaven forbid, one of those prisoners released early harms someone, it will simply underscore the Legislature’s irresponsibility. But if it doesn’t happen, it won’t mean lawmakers were right; only that they were lucky.

Lawmakers love to look tough on crime by increasing the length of prison sentences. But part of being tough on crime also has to be finding the revenue to adequately fund police, courts and prisons. Doing one without doing the other is blatantly irresponsible.

jakking Alabama, California, Economic Issues

Colbert County AL needs a new jail, but the county commission must address a major issue – how to pay for it.  Reported by the Florence Times Daily.

The Colbert County Jail was built in 1962 and, according to contractors that specialize in jail construction, it’s nearing the end of its life expectancy. “That jail thing has been lying there dormant for a number of years,” Commissioner Roger Creekmore said. “We realize there’s some issues with the existing jail. We want to go ahead and be proactive now about addressing those issues.” Creekmore wants the commission to explore how much a new jail will cost and options for funding it … “We could sit here all day and guess what a new jail is going to cost, how many beds do we need, how are we going to finance it, where are we going to locate it,” he said. “We need someone in here with experience in a consulting capacity to help answer those questions.”

Colbert County Sheriff Ronnie May said many of the jail’s problems are because of its age. The jail was designed to hold 62 inmates, but as of May 5, it contained 88 prisoners. May said as many as 125 inmates have been in the jail at one time. He said the way the jail was built makes it difficult for jailers to monitor prisoners. There is a video surveillance system, but some of the cameras are inoperable and the system does not have a recording function. “Ideally, we want cameras that monitor physical activity and record it,” May said. The last jail renovation project was in 1986 when the interior was painted and new flooring installed. Broken welds on metal bed frames were repaired …

“There are sinks that don’t work and toilets that don’t flush,” Security officer Heath Halcomb said during a tour of the facility. “There are recurring problems with the plumbing.” Assistant Chief Deputy Mike Aday said freezers and refrigerators are in two or three separate locations in the building and food items often have to be brought from an upstairs storage room downstairs to the kitchen … The jail lacks a place for inmates to exercise outside. During Sunday visitation, friends or family stand outside the cells to speak to inmates through an opening in the cell’s metal doors …

The most popular idea has been a consolidated jail that would house county inmates as well as inmates from Muscle Shoals, Sheffield, Tuscumbia, Cherokee, Leighton and Littleville. “The capacity would be increased to hold around 250-275 inmates,” the sheriff said. He said the drug task force and emergency management agency expressed interest in having offices in such a facility. The sheriff’s office would also be located there, and the best scenario would include a courtroom.

The full article is much longer, with more background and information.

jakking AL Colbert County, Alabama, Economic Issues, Jail and Prison Construction, Overcrowding

The $2.5 billion General Fund budget passed by the Alabama Legislature gives the state prison system less than Corrections Commissioner Richard Allen said Friday is needed to operate the overcrowded, aging prison system.  From AL.com.

The Department of Corrections is getting $359 million in this year’s scaled-back budget. The budget approved by the Legislature on Thursday would provide $366 million for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1. That’s about $4 million less than the governor requested.  The House originally wanted to give prisons more than Gov. Bob Riley requested, but the Senate wanted to use several million in prison money to fund festivals, rescue squads, civic programs and other projects in senators’ districts. The budget approved Thursday is a compromise that gives both representatives and senators money for projects in their districts …

Allen, the prisons commissioner, said under the original budget passed by the House, the prison system would have been $14 million short of what’s needed to continue operations at the current level … “Now we are looking at a $20 million shortfall just to do what we are doing now,” Allen said. “We’re going to have to find some money some place. We’ve been trimming fat for the last couple of years and we are just out of fat.”

Rep. Harry Shiver, R-Bay Minette, represents a district that includes two of the state’s toughest penitentiaries, Holman and Fountain prisons near Atmore. He said he was “disillusioned” by the budget cuts and worried they would further compromise the safety of corrections officers. “We’ve already got 150 inmates per guard in some places in our prisons,” Shiver said. “I wish we could hire more. I wish we could pay them more. I don’t think in Montgomery that prisons are at the top of the priority list.”

jakking Alabama, Economic Issues

With more than 2,400 inmates, deteriorating facilities and not enough correctional officers, Alabama’s Limestone Correctional Facility is dangerous to its employees, said prison leaders and state legislators Monday.  Report from the Huntsville Times.

“It worries me more than it has in my entire career,” said warden Billy Mitchem. Added state Rep. Mac McCutcheon, R-Capshaw: “Personally, I think we’re in a crisis.”

Prison leaders toured the prison with legislators and media to help make their case for more money.  Mitchem said state budget cuts leave him 35 correctional officers shy of what he needs. He expressed concern for the roughly 200 prison employees who work with or near the inmates each day.   “(The cuts) are hurting us because I’m not able to man the security posts the way I should,” Mitchem said. “I want to keep my staff safe. I’m concerned about that.”

Space is tight in many areas of the prison. Rows of bunk beds cover the walking area of one cell block. The L dorm, as it’s called, houses 224 inmates. It’s supposed to hold 152. Some of the L dorm inmates are rapists and murderers, Mitchem said. In another dorm, home to about 400 more inmates, several more bunk beds cover the living area … “(If) you keep jamming inmates in these prisons like we’re doing … somebody’s going to be yelling for help,” said Wallace. “I just hope nobody gets hurt.”

jakking Alabama, Economic Issues, Overcrowding

After a $1.5 billion infusion of Federal stimulus cash, Alabama’s fiscal problems may not lead to the drastic cuts in services that were anticipated.

The Department of Corrections has flirted with furloughs, even announcing a plan for as many as four furlough days to employees. But so far, none of the Corrections employees have had to take a furlough day, the department said Wednesday.  That pattern may hold for the rest of fiscal 2009, which ends June 30. Then, if the 2010 budget holds its current form, furloughs may be avoided altogether at state prisons.  “If nothing changes, it all looks good,” department budget director Ken Nash said in an e-mail forwarded to The Telegraph by a department spokeswoman.

Excerpted from a much broader article at Macon.com.

jakking Alabama, Economic Issues

The Alabama Department of Corrections began in October 2007 charging cities, counties and other governing bodies for labor done by prisoners, such as picking up trash along highways.  That price will go up by 50 percent in October as the department seeks to close a gap in funding, according to the Birmingham News.

This year, there is a $43.3 million difference in the funding the corrections department gets from the state of Alabama and the amount it takes to run the system. The department narrows the gap by charging for inmate squad labor, raising revenue through the prison work release program and other steps.   On Oct. 1, the start of fiscal 2010, the rate will increase from $10 per inmate, per day to $15.

For one agency, the Alabama Department of Transportation, the rate has already more than doubled. ALDOT started paying for inmate squads in the spring of 2007, and until recently was paying $20. In February, the rate rose to $50 per inmate per day, Corrections spokesman Brian Corbett said … Corrections Commissioner Richard Allen has estimated that the new rates will bring in about $3 million each year …

[In 2007], according to the department’s annual report, inmate squads from 14 state prison facilities performed 103,000 man-hours per month, “equivalent to a labor savings of almost $6 million to government agencies within the state.”  In the spring of 2007, Allen said he got permission from Gov. Bob Riley to begin charging for the work squad labor. He put his plan into operation in the year’s final quarter, when the department asked the state and local agencies to consider paying. More than $15,000 in fees came in … That $15,000 sum was dwarfed by fees earned in fiscal 2008. In that year, Corbett said, inmate squads worked more than 1.3 million hours and generated nearly $1.2 million in fees. If the inmates had been working for minimum wage, the fees would have amounted to more than $6.9 million, Corbett said.  Unlike inmates in work release, who generally keep 60 percent of what they earn in civilian jobs, those on the work squads earn $2 a day.

jakking Alabama, Inmate Labor

The Alabama Department of Corrections expects work-release inmate hires will increase now that a policy requiring their employers to have a business license has been withdrawn.  Report from the Montgomery Advertizer.

The policy was imposed during the three-year term of Corrections Commissioner Donal Campbell, who left the job in 2006. It virtually ended the day labor option for the only inmates eligible for it — those at the state’s 11 work release centers … At the work-release center in Decatur, about 20 individuals have hired inmates for day labor since the policy was changed. Inmates who do not have full-time jobs can be tapped for the work, said Decatur warden Bettinna Carter.  The employer must have proof of homeowner’s insurance, a driver’s license, and provide transportation for the inmate to and from the job.  With an hourly rate of $7 for general work and $10 for skilled work, day labor is a bargain, Carter said.

jakking Alabama, Work Release

The construction management contract has been issued by the Federal Bureau of Prisons for the building of a new facility at Aliceville AL, according to a press release from Jacobs Engineering.

Officials did not disclose the contract value, yet estimate the construction value at over $130 million. This design-build project encompasses a total building area of approximately 45,000 square meters with living units and support facilities for a rated capacity of approximately 1100 to 1500 inmates. The facility will be a “campus plan” type of institution consisting of several one- and two-story buildings, a Federal Prison Industries (UNICOR) factory, and three general housing units of four levels each all within a secure compound. A minimum security Federal Prison Camp with living units and support facilities with a capacity of 256 inmates also is included. A central utility building, outside administration building, firing range, and associated parking and roadways will be constructed outside the secure perimeter.

jakking Alabama, Federal Systems, Jail and Prison Construction

A newly completed building at Limestone Correctional Facility will be a transitional center for inmates where they learn to better handle life outside of prison. The goal is to have fewer of them return, Alabama Department of Corrections officials say.

The 300-bed pre-release center was formerly an Alabama Corrections Industries warehouse that was renovated by Martin and Cobey Construction Co. as a dormitory-style facility, said DOC spokesman Brian Corbett.  While prisons state wide have similar programs, Limestone County’s is the most intensive, said Elana M. Parker, Re-Entry Program coordinator for the DOC.   The facility opened about a month ago and inmates already have been moved to the facility to go through the program, she said.  Limestone was chosen for the more in-depth program because this “institution had space, capability, and staff,” she said …

“It prepares people to go out and look for a job, gives them communication skills and health education information, teaches them how to dress, talks about addiction recovery and how to find a community resource organization to assist with the transition and reintegrate them with their families and the community,” Parker said. “It introduces different phases of behavior modification so inmates have a pool of information to get out and adopt a healthier lifestyle so that they will not re-offend and come back into the system.”

jakking Alabama, Inmate Programs, Re-Entry

The City of Huntsville AL has secured the long-awaited Certificate of Occupancy for the construction-plagued metro jail.

Mayor Tommy Battle confirmed the Inspections Department issued the certificate Wednesday night. The City Inspection Department awarded the CO after an extensive inspection found the jail in working order and capable of being occupied by inmates and jail staff.  The measure doesn’t necessarily mean inmates will immediately be transferred from other county lockups. Battle estimated it may be six to eight weeks before inmates could be moved in …

The $29 million metro jail project swelled to $72 million after structural problems and other work defects led to the ouster of the original general contractor and subcontractors.  Those parties along with the city are embroiled in lawsuits over what went wrong and who’s to blame.

jakking AL Madison County, Jail and Prison Construction

Officials are describing Alabama’s prison system as a time bomb that could explode at any time.   Gov. Bob Riley and state corrections officers said on Monday that the prison system is bulging at the seams and the overpopulated, understaffed system could be headed toward a dangerous explosion.  “I’m here today to tell you as an officer who works inside a correctional facility each and every day, our prisons are an absolute time bomb waiting to explode,” said Capt. Lloyd Wallace, president of the Alabama Correctional Organization.

The following video is taken from the Montgomery Advertizer:

jakking Alabama, Overcrowding

The Alabama Department of Corrections has put its latest portions of land up for sale in an ongoing effort to raise money to fund repairs.

Gov. Bob Riley and Corrections Commissioner Richard Allen announced plans to sell more than 5,000 acres of unproductive properties across the state in 2007.  The system put more than 400 acres from the Limestone Correctional Facility on the market Wednesday.  The largest section is 185 acres with a minimum bid of nearly $5.1 million. The second parcel has 122 acres with a minimum bid of $3.3 million and the third has 120 acres for the same price.  Corrections has sold more than 3,800 acres at the Farquhar State Cattle Ranch and its old Montgomery headquarters so far.

jakking Alabama, Economic Issues

Male American Indians incarcerated in Alabama’s prisons want the right to grow their hair long according to their tribal religious customs.

It will be up to U.S. Magistrate Judge Charles S. Coody to decide whether they have it.   The decision will be the most recent ruling in a legal battle that American Indians have been waging with the state Department of Corrections for the past 15 years.  The Indian inmates contend they should be able to practice their religious beliefs in the same manner as inmates of other religious persuasions. They believe the practice of their beliefs has been stifled by the department’s policy of requiring all male inmates to keep their hair short. Testimony on the grooming policy ended Friday, and the case has been turned over to Coody for consideration. A ruling is expected soon.

Alabama is one of 12 mostly Southern states that prohibit inmates from wearing long hair while incarcerated. The rest of the United States and the District of Columbia either permit inmates to grow their hair long for religious reasons or have no rule against it, according to a survey that has been admitted as evidence in the case. Of the 25,303 inmates in state prisons, 195 are Native American …

According to a pretrial order, the state’s main argument against the practice is that long hair poses a threat to “prison security, safety, health and hygiene … and public safety.”  Keeping male inmates hair short also aids in identifying inmates, particularly in escape situations. It also helps prevent hiding contraband, stops inmates from grabbing hair during fights, and keeps it from getting caught in machinery or doors, according to the order. The plaintiffs dispute these justifications in their lawsuit.

jakking Alabama, Alabama DOC, American Indians