Chris England calls for ADOC commissioner Jeff Dunn to be fired

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Chris England

State Rep. Chris England has become yet another leader to speak out about issues within the Alabama criminal justice system, Al.com reported. England took to Twitter on Sunday and called for Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner Jeff Dunn to be fired.

Gov. Kay Ivey and other state leaders have been pushing the construction of new correctional facilities to reduce prison overcrowding and violence. In June, the deadline for investors to come aboard Ivey’s prison lease plan passed with no takers. Ivey proposed a plan to have private companies build three prisons and charge the state millions in annual rent to house prisoners in them. The Alabama Department of Corrections is currently being sued by the U.S. Department of Justice over conditions in the state prisons, saying the state is failing to protect male inmates from inmate-on-inmate violence and excessive force at the hands of prison staff. Just this month, Dunn asked federal officials if COVID-19 funds could be used to improve state prisons with “better, enhanced, and/or extended infrastructure.”

England Tweeted, “Let’s start with the obvious. ADOC Commissioner Jeff Dunn needs to be fired. 10 men have died in prisons THIS MONTH. Well, 10 that we know about. Not only, is the ADOC poorly managed, they routinely hide information so it’s hard to know what’s going on.”

England stated, “What will it take for us to realize that Alabama’s criminal justice system is broken and it is going to take more than new buildings to fix it? We got federal lawsuits, corruption in ADOC, people dying daily in our prisons and a pardons and paroles system that doesn’t work.”

State Auditor Jim Zeigler has also been a vocal opponent to Ivey’s plan for mega prisons. Zeigler commented, “The Ivey plan would have forced Alabama taxpayers to pay rents starting about $94 million a year and going up to about $106 million.  At the end of 30 years, the state would own equity in the prisons of zero.  No equity.  That was a bad business plan. The Ivey plan did not address the problems in the prison system – the safety of staff and other inmates, overcrowding, mental health, suicide, recidivism, and inadequate job training.  The plan merely threw $3.6 billion of taxpayer money into rented buildings.”

Zeigler, along with more than a dozen organizations, sent a letter to Ivey in January, opposing the mega-prison plan. Representatives Rich WingoArnold Mooney, and Steve Clouse all expressed concerns about the plan as well. Clouse, who chairs the budget committee, said, “there are a lot of questions that the Legislature would like answered.”

Part of the letter Zeigler sent to Ivey stated, “Our prisons are unconstitutional not because they are in need of repair, but because the ADOC is the most dysfunctional department of corrections in America. The DOJ has targeted our prisons because they are racist and violent. Are we supposed to believe that the same department that got us into this mess will run functioning prisons just because they get new buildings?  

“Even if building modern facilities addresses some concerns, it is unlikely to take us out of the DOJ’s crosshairs. The best use of taxpayer dollars cannot be to pursue the action most expensive and least likely to avoid federal intervention—paying $2.6 billion to rent 3 prisons. Why have there been no known attempts to determine the cost of pursuing the DOJ’s actual recommendations?”