“We need to do better,” Yolanda Flowers says of Alabama’s criminal justice system

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Yolanda Rochelle Flowers Photo Credit: https://www.yolandaforgovernor.org/

On Monday, inmates at the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) launched a statewide work stoppage to protest their quality-of-life concerns in Alabama’s prisons. On Wednesday, Alabama Democratic Party gubernatorial nominee Yolanda Rochelle Flowers said in a videotaped statement sent to Alabama Today, “We can do better.”

Flowers claimed that the prisoners were being treated “worse than animals” and called on people to call Alabama Governor Kay Ivey to address her concerns.

“Hey, this is Yolanda Flowers. I am your gubernatorial candidate for Governor of Alabama,” Flowers said. “My concerns that I want to address is our criminal justice system and how unfair it is all across the state.”

“Our incarcerated loved ones, our incarcerated citizens, are suffering,” Flowers claimed. “They are suffering from the injustices. They are not getting the proper food. They are not getting the proper healthcare services. Whether it is mental or physical…they are not getting it. They are living in conditions that, to be honest, are worse than animals outside. We need to do better. We need to call our governor up on this. No, she doesn’t want to give equitability to our people, but our people are suffering. Yes, they made some mistakes, but that is OK; she has too. So I am asking that you all will vote for Yolanda Flowers.”

The Alabama prison system has been heavily criticized over the years. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), on behalf of several current and former inmates, has sued the state claiming that the prisoners do not get the proper mental services and that the prisons are chronically understaffed. Federal Judge Myron Thompson has ordered the state to address the lack of mental health services. ADOC has responded by contracting with a new mental healthcare provider. Thompson has also ordered ADOC to hire 2,000 more prison guards. Despite raising the pay and providing generous signing and retention bonuses, ADOC has not been able to hire even 20 percent of that number in the past three years. That case is still pending.

The Obama Justice Department ordered an investigation of the Alabama prison system. An investigation that the Trump Justice Department carried out. The DOJ investigation revealed that ADOC is the country’s most violent prison system and that numerous documented cases of beatings, rapes, and even murders of inmates by other inmates in the system. The system is awash in illegal drugs, and several inmates have overdosed while in ADOC custody.

After the Ivey administration failed to move quickly enough to address DOJ’s concerns, then-Attorney General William Barr filed suit against the state, claiming that conditions in the Alabama prisons are so bad that they constitute a “cruel and unusual punishment” and are thus unconstitutional – a claim that the state of Alabama disputes. The Biden DOJ has not backed away from the Trump administration’s position and offered leniency to the state.

In November, the Alabama Legislature approved Gov. Ivey’s plan to build two new mega prisons that will house in excess of 4,000 inmates each. The Ivey administration claims that the new facilities will allow ADOC to guard the same number of inmates with fewer guards while providing better health and mental services to inmates. Construction is underway on the two mega prisons in Elmore and Escambia Counties. In December, Gov. Ivey fired ADOC Commissioner Jeff Dunn, a Bentley Administration holdover who had been tasked with transforming the prison system.

video of an inmate being beaten by an ADOC guard on the roof of one of the prisons has only enflamed passions on both sides of the standoff. The inmates claim that ADOC is retaliating against their work stoppage by withholding food.

Ivey and Flowers, along with Libertarian Dr. James “Jimmy” Blake, will be on the November 8 general election ballot for governor.

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