Corrections officers miss shifts at crowded Alabama prison
Some corrections officers are not showing up for work at a crowded south Alabama prison that has been beset by multiple incidents of violence. Department of Corrections spokesman Bob Horton said six corrections officers assigned to William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore called in sick for the third shift Sunday. Nine officers did not for show up for the same shift on Sept. 24, according to the prison system. Three officers resigned. Horton says officers have not announced an official strike or given demands to prison administrators. However, Horton said officers’ concerns expressed to media about the facility are “understandable due to understaffing and overcrowding.” Officers from other prisons have been brought over to fill in at the prison, he said. Located in southwest Alabama, the maximum-security prison houses the state execution chamber and has been the site of multiple outbreaks of violence. A Holman officer died last month after being stabbed by an inmate. Inmates injured the warden, set fires and seized control of dormitory during a March uprising. The prison was placed on lockdown again in August after officials said inmates in one of the dormitories “became aggressive” toward the guards. Officers secured the door of the housing area, and some inmates inside started a fire inside. A Department of Corrections report shows Holman was designed to hold 581 inmates but housed 804 inmates at the end of May. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
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.”
