Prison system: Alabama making progress in mental health
Alabama prison officials contend they are making “substantial progress” in increasing mental health staff and have asked a federal judge to not find the state in contempt of court. U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson has scheduled a Jan. 7 hearing on whether the Alabama Department of Corrections should be found in contempt of a court order to increase mental health staffing numbers to minimum levels. The department wrote in a Friday court filing acknowledged that Wexford Health Sources, the contractor hired to provide health care, had not been able to meet staffing targets but said “both are making all efforts to increase staffing as quickly as possible.”“In sum, the state is not contending that it has fulfilled every requirement of the staffing remedial order. But it has made in good faith all reasonable efforts to do so, and those efforts have resulted in substantial progress,” the filing stated. Attorneys for the inmates have asked the judge to find the prison system in contempt, arguing the prison system is “woefully short” of a requirement to fill 263 full-time mental health positions. “Defendants’ contempt is placing prisoners with serious mental-health needs at a substantial risk of serious harm every day. Their failures are most evident when looking at staffing levels for mental-health staff with advanced training, specifically psychiatrists, CRNPs, psychologists, and registered nurses,” lawyers for inmates wrote earlier this month. Elaine Gedman, chief administrative officer and executive vice president for Wexford Health Sources, disputed that characterization. She wrote in a declaration with the court filing that they had provided 227 full-time equivalent positions. The prison system wrote that there has been difficulty in recruiting staff because of a shortage of health professionals in the state, particularly in rural areas. They also said compliance should be measured by “hours of service” provided, instead of just positions filled. Thompson last year ruled that mental health care was “horrendously inadequate” in state prisons and created unconstitutional conditions. The ruling came after the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program filed a class-action lawsuit over health care in state prisons. The first inmate to testify at the trial killed himself days after describing past suicide attempts and a lack of psychiatric treatment while in state custody. Republished with permission from the Associated Press.
New study reveals Alabama has 5th highest incarceration rate in the world
The Prison Policy Initiative released a new report in May comparing the incarceration rate of each American state to countries around the world, and the Yellowhammer state came in fifth place overall. Fifth place, compared to the entire world; yikes Alabama. Oklahoma topped the list with 1,079 inmates per 100,000 of populous in their state but Alabama was not far behind, reporting 946 people imprisoned per 100,000 people in the state; the U.S. national average is 698 per 100,000. But the Yellowhammer state was not the only one with higher ratings, a total 23 states in the nation were reported to have rates over the national average, giving them the highest incarceration rates in the world. The report then compared these numbers to other nations around the world, where even places like Slovakia, Argentina, Australia and the Ukraine had less than 200 people per 100,000 incarcerated. “If we imagine every state as an independent nation…every state appears extreme,” said the report. “Massachusetts, the state with the lowest incarceration rate in the nation, would rank 9th in the world, just below Brazil and followed closely by countries like Belarus, Turkey, Iran, and South Africa.” “States like Alabama, with incarceration rates even higher than the U.S. average, compare even worse. Next to other stable democracies, Alabama is off the charts,” the Prison Policy Initiative explained. The prison system in Alabama is long overdue for an overhaul, the state prison system houses nearly twice the inmates it was designed for. Prison officers and inmates have been killed and injured in a series of violent crimes behind bars, and with several reports this year of Sheriff’s stealing and pocketing hundreds of thousands of dollars meant for inmates food rations, it’s a wonder we’re not talking about this issue. In 2014, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program filed a lawsuit against the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) to end the poor conditions in the state prison system, including the understaffing of both correctional and mental health workers. According to the SPLC, as of January 2018, the state still hadn’t come up with an acceptable remedy to address the “horrendously inadequate” and unconstitutional mental health care and staffing needs of the ADOC. “As Gov. Kay Ivey and ADOC Commissioner Jeff Dunn have both recognized, the constitutional violations of how the state treats prisoners developed over a generation. It will be difficult, and likely costly, to fix them. But ADOC has to fix them,” said Maria Morris, senior supervising attorney for the SPLC, and lead litigator in the case. Ivey responded by adding an additional $51 million to the ADOC budget earlier in 2018.
Robert Bentley visits Holman Prison amid inmate unrest
Multiple disturbances have occurred at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore over the last week, causing Gov. Robert Bentley to visit the city for an update on moves being made to address the ongoing unrest. In two separate instances, inmates at the facility had committed acts of violence against other inmates and prison guards and had started fires and barricaded themselves inside the prison. Though the two uprisings had been quelled, concerns over the state of Alabama’s prisons continues. The incidents stand to prop up Bentley’s landmark prison reform measures, which have come before multiple committees in the form of legislation known as the Alabama Prison Transformation Initiative Act. Holman is a maximum-security prison designed to house 637 inmates, though it currently houses 991, which is 156 percent of capacity. During his visit to the prison, Bentley warned that more uprisings could be on the horizon if lawmakers don’t address the aged and overcrowded system. “What we have today in Alabama makes it dangerous not just for the inmates, but for our guards and our wardens,” Bentley said. “We want to minimize that.” “The facility is overcrowded, and there is a shortage of corrections officers,” the news release from Bentley’s office said. “Disturbances like what has occurred in the last three days are some examples of the issues that have plagued Alabama’s prison system for decades.”
