ALABAMA PRISONS: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR REFORM.

• Author: Dove, Laura R.

1. INTRODUCTION

   Over the last few years, Alabama has gained national attention for its criminal justice woes. A severe prison overcrowding problem, budget issues, and inmate violence have created a puzzle for policymakers to try to solve. From a legislative debate over a multimillion-dollar prison construction project, to lawsuits condemning Alabama prison conditions and operations, to the threat of federal intervention, Alabama's criminal justice system is on the cusp of major reforms.

   On its face, the problem of prison overcrowding seems relatively simple: too many prisoners, not enough space and resources. But prison populations are driven by decisions, incentives, and circumstances at every stage of the criminal justice system. Further, prison overcrowding causes, or contributes to, a host of other problems within prisons, particularly when combined with other factors such as security staffing deficiencies. Both the causes and consequences of overcrowding in prisons are multifactored and complex.

   Developing sound law and policy solutions to a problem of this magnitude and complexity requires a complete understanding, not only of the scope and nature of the problem itself, but also a historical view of criminal justice and corrections problems and reforms in the state. To that end, this paper contributes a comprehensive overview of Alabama's correctional system, including a detailed look at the scope of prison overcrowding and understaffing. We highlight corrections and criminal justice policy reforms enacted in the twenty-first century and provide detailed analysis on the findings of major court decisions and the recent U.S. Department of Justice investigation into the state of Alabama's prisons. We also provide a comprehensive examination of the life cycle of incarceration, in terms of what drives prison populations, and offer proposals for potential reforms.

   In addition to legal and policy analysis, we offer an economic perspective for Alabama's major prison problems.

   Economic analysis is a crucial component of sound policymaking in light of the significant costs the state expects to incur in order to address unconstitutional conditions in its prison facilities. Moreover, economic research on crime and punishment has raised relevant and interesting questions about things like sentencing alternatives, the effects of prison size on inmate behavior, and prison financing. Economics has provided, what the White House in 2016 called, "a useful lens for understanding the costs, benefits, and consequences of incarceration and other criminal justice policies." (1) It is our hope that this report serves as an economic guide to criminal justice and prison reform for those tasked with keeping Alabama's citizens safe, its dangerous inmates incarcerated, and its budget balanced.

   Alabama prisons are severely overcrowded and the state has historically had problems with correctional officer staffing and a corrections budget that is spread thin. Several important pieces of legislation and other measures undertaken by the Alabama Department of Corrections in the last decade have attempted to solve the overcrowding problem through sentencing reforms, exploring alternatives to incarceration, and other initiatives. These piecemeal efforts, while effective in alleviating some of the problems, have not satisfactorily addressed overcrowding once and for all. Instead, the conclusion of a recent U.S. Department of Justice Investigation and ongoing litigation over medical, dental, and mental health care in the state's prisons have uncovered prison conditions amounting to a constitutional and humanitarian crisis, demanding urgent resolution.

   Alabama policymakers have spent the past few legislative sessions debating various prison construction bills that promise to reduce overcrowding to an acceptable amount, mainly by increasing the available space in prisons and providing better health, resources, and treatment programs to inmates. After the failure of two previous bills, the Governor has now proposed taking similar executive action. The new construction comes with a price tag of at least $800 million. And, while prison facilities are long overdue for improvements, even the proponents of these plans acknowledge that deeper reforms addressing the structural causes of overcrowding are needed. Alabama's prison and criminal justice issues are nuanced and require nuanced solutions. Throughout this paper, we suggest numerous policy recommendations based on the academic and policy literature and experiences of other states targeting a wide variety of the factors driving prison growth.

   Specifically, Section II provides an overview of Alabama's correctional system, including the locations and characteristics of its physical facilities and demographic and offense characteristics of the inmate populations. In Section III, we exam corrections and criminal justice reform efforts in Alabama. Section III.A addresses overcrowding and understaffing,--the two primary, longstanding factors underlying all the major problems in Alabama's prisons. Next, Section III.B considers a history of Alabama's prisons through the lens of key federal court challenges to the constitutionality of prison conditions. Remarkably, the prison conditions currently litigated in federal district court are virtually identical to those that federal courts have reviewed in Alabama since at least the 1970s.

   Later, Section III.C provides a brief overview of criminal justice reform efforts in the twenty-first century that have sought to address the root causes of prison growth. Then, Section III.D offers an in-depth examination of legislative and executive initiatives to solve prison overcrowding and alleviate staffing deficiencies through prison consolidation and construction. This paper explores a number of pitfalls derived from both fiscal and social science sources in these proposals to create "mega-prisons" in lieu of Alabama's thirteen major men's prisons. These construction efforts were proposed, in part, to avoid the prospect of federal intervention in the state's prisons. However, as section III.E details, the U.S. Department of Justice initiated an investigation into Alabama's prisons in October 2016 and the findings of that investigation are discussed.

   In Section IV, we address the core, direct drivers of prison populations, from prison admissions, to length of stay, to releases. This section offers additional detail on some of the state's previous criminal justice reforms, which are mentioned in Section III along with policy recommendations for additional or complementary reforms. Here, it becomes apparent that reform efforts must be both multifaceted and comprehensive as numerous uncoordinated actors in a variety of offices, all facing different incentives, interact in ways that drive prison population changes. Recidivism, a significant concern on its own as a potential driver of prison growth, is addressed separately in Section V. Section VI contains our concisions about Alabama's prison system.

2. ALABAMA'S CORRECTIONAL SYSTEM: FACILITIES AND POPULATION

   1. Physical Facilities, Locations, and Populations

      The Alabama Department of Corrections ("ADOC") administers fifteen major correctional facilities and eleven community-based facilities. (2) ADOC considers three categories when measuring inmate population: jurisdictional, custody, and in-house population. (3) The jurisdictional population includes "all inmates sentenced to the ADOC, independent of their current custody location"; for example, the jurisdictional population includes inmates in the custody of county jails and community corrections programs as well as inmates in ADOC custody at state correctional facilities. (4) The custody population includes "all inmates sentenced to the ADOC... who are under [its] day-to-day control." (5) The in-house population is limited to inmates at ADOC owned-and-operated correctional facilities, which include major institutions as well as work centers and work release facilities.

      For discussions of prison overcrowding based on the state prison system's facility capacity in Section III, the in-house population is the most relevant number. However, it is also important to note that, from 1968 to 2013, Alabama's jurisdictional inmate population increased 710%. (7) As discussed in Sections IV and V, this means more individuals being exposed to the criminal justice system and being saddled with criminal records, which can affect the likelihood of future criminality (e.g., by limiting future employment and earnings prospects). Likewise, examining Alabama's in-house prison population over the last 20 years (including correctional facilities, work release facilities, and work centers) shows that the number of inmates steadily grew into the 2000s and hit its peak in 2011. (8) Contrasted with the original design capacity of Alabama's prisons, including renovations over the years, the in-house population has far exceeded original design limits over the years. Overcrowding is discussed further in Section III.

      Among the in-house population, just over 36% are in "close" security facilities (high-security) and 50% are in medium-security facilities. The remaining 14% of in-house inmates are split between minimum-security facilities, the bulk of which are in either minimum-security work centers or minimum-security work-release facilities. (9)

      The fifteen major correctional facilities include two female facilities (Tutwiler and Montgomery, with Tutwiler being the primary women's facility) and thirteen close-security and medium-security male facilities. (10) The close-security facilities include Holman, Kilby, St. Clair, Donaldson, and Limestone. (11) The medium-security facilities include Bibb, Bullock, Easterling, Elmore, Fountain, Hamilton, Staton, and Ventress. (12) Among the medium-security male facilities, all but the Hamilton Aged and Jnfirmed Center have populations of over...