Corrections Commissioner Jeff Dunn honored despite troubles

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Jeff Dunn

The head of Alabama’s troubled prison system is being honored with a national award.

The department says Corrections Commissioner Jeff Dunn is being awarded a career achievement award by the Correctional Leaders Association, a national organization for prison administrators.

Dunn serves as the group’s regional chair and is a member of its executive committee. He’s been commissioner of Alabama’s badly overcrowded prison system since 2015.

Alabama’s prison system is plagued with a series of inmate deaths due to suicide, homicide and drug overdoses. And the Justice Department earlier this year cited the state for unconstitutional conditions including excessive violence.

A prison reform group, Alabamians for Fair Justice, criticized Dunn’s award by saying his only solution has been to build new, larger prisons and keeping people locked up.

Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.