Per-inmate spending has increased, but staffing remains low and conditions are poor

Per-inmate spending has increased, but staffing remains low and conditions are poor

By Martha Simmons
Correspondent, The Alabama Baptist

On any given day in Alabama nearly 106,000 men, women and children are either incarcerated or under some sort of active probation, parole or other community supervision.

Using 2016 statistics the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics and the nonprofit, nonpartisan Prison Policy Initiative break it down this way:

• 40,900 in an Alabama state prison or jail
• 3,500 in federal prison in Alabama
• 870 juveniles in custody
• 60,700 on probation or parole

If Alabama were a country instead of a state, its incarceration rate of 946 per 100,000 population would be the fifth-highest in the world, preceded only by four other U.S. states:

1. Oklahoma
2. Louisiana
3. Mississippi
4. Georgia

Alabama’s incarceration rate is significantly higher than the United States as a whole, which holds the dubious distinction of being the No. 1 incarceration nation in the world.

Keeping that many people behind bars carries a big price tag.

Varying costs

Local jail costs vary from one county to another and depend on how local officials manage their own jails. For instance some Alabama sheriffs have been found to be pocketing for their personal use state funds left over from feeding prisoners. It’s legal: The state pays sheriffs $1.75 per state inmate per day for food, and Alabama law allows sheriffs to keep any leftover money. One Alabama sheriff made headlines this year for saving enough “extra” food fund money to buy a beach house. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has taken steps to stop the controversial practice and change the Depression-era law.

A clearer picture of incarceration costs at the state prison level is accessible in the system’s annual report. In fiscal year 2017 the Alabama Department of Corrections reported state prison system expenditures of more than $460 million. That’s an average price of $52.07 per inmate per day, or about $19,000 per year.

While low compared with the rest of the nation the 2017 spending is significantly higher than a couple of years earlier. In its “The Price of Prisons” report, the Vera Institute of Justice reported the national cost per inmate averaged $33,274 in 2015, with Alabama the lowest at $14,780 and New York the highest at $69,355.

More troubling, there are twice as many inmates in Alabama’s adult prisons than they were built for, and not nearly enough correctional officers to keep things under control.

As a consequence Alabama’s correctional facilities are overcrowded, understaffed and dangerous:

• Alabama’s prison homicide rate is more than 30 per 100,000 — six times the national average and twice that of the next-highest state.

• Alabama’s prison suicide rate is 37 per 100,000, more than twice the national rate.

These conditions have sparked national headlines, investigations and court rulings:

• In 2016 the U.S. Department of Justice opened an investigation into widespread violence and sexual abuse in the men’s prisons.

• In 2017 a federal district court judge cited Alabama state prisons with providing inmates “horrendously inadequate” mental health care.

• In 2018 the Alabama Department of Corrections filed court documents asserting the need for twice as many correctional officers as are currently employed to address safety concerns.

Citizens who think these problems remain safely locked behind bars are ignoring reality.

At least 95 percent of all state prisoners will be released from prison at some point, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Cycling out

In Alabama about half of the total state prison population is cycling out of correctional facilities each year and that many more new inmates are taking their place. Some 14,200 inmates were released from Alabama prisons in fiscal year 2017, many of them bringing along the emotional baggage of years spent in an underfunded, overcrowded and violent environment.

Some will have supportive family, church and community members to embrace them upon their return. Perhaps they learned a trade in prison that makes them more employable. They have support systems in place that allow them to be hopeful and earn their place in society.

But for many others it’s a different story. Some newly released prisoners are just as mentally ill or drug-addicted as they were before entering prison, if not more so. Many will have problems finding jobs or affordable housing, rendering them and their families homeless. Some ex-offenders return to the free world having lost everything, including the love of their families.

For about a third of the inmates released from Alabama state prisons, the challenges and temptations prove insurmountable.

They will most likely return to old ways and eventually go back to prison, perpetuating the cycle.

__________________________________________________________________________

A look at racial makeup of prison populations throughout history

When Alabama’s first state prison opened in Wetumpka in 1841, 99 percent of the inmates were white immigrants.

They were forced to build by hand the buggies, wagons, saddles, harnesses, shoes and rope that would be sold to free customers in the outside world.

Slaves, not having any legal rights to a trial, were left to their owners to punish, so they were not among those imprisoned by the state.

During the Civil War all but the most hardened convicts were released to serve in the Confederate Army. During Reconstruction and afterwards Alabama laws were changed to allow convicts to be leased outside the prison facilities, a scheme that proved more profitable as inmate labor was put to work rebuilding the railroad system destroyed by war.

However, the post-Civil War inmate population was 90 percent black, and many recently freed slaves once again found themselves in captivity and working without compensation.

Throughout the ensuing decades inmate labor was employed in such private industries as brick-making, cotton mills, coal mines, sawmills and turpentine stills, as well as a sprawling prison farm and cattle ranch.

While today’s inmate population is more racially balanced, many civil rights organizations still see mass incarceration, inmate leasing and the over-representation of African-Americans in the criminal justice system as another form of slavery. The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) traces that narrative in its recently opened exhibit in Montgomery, “The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration.” (For more information, visit https://eji.org/legacy-museum.)

The EJI was founded by Bryan Stevenson, whose best-selling 2014 book, “Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption,” details the story of Walter McMillian, a Monroeville black man held on death row for six years for a crime he didn’t commit, the murder of a young white woman. With Stevenson’s help in navigating the appeals process, McMillian was released from prison in 1993.

Eerily similar to the fictional classic novel “To Kill a Mockingbird,” also set in Monroeville, Stevenson’s nonfiction account is being made into a movie starring Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx and Brie Larson. Filming on “Just Mercy” began in Montgomery this summer and is set for release in early 2020. (TAB)

For more information on the history of Alabama state prisons, visit http://www.doc.state.al.us/History.

_________________________________________________________________________

Alabama State Prison System by the Numbers

Costs
• Expenditures — $460,200,691
• Average daily cost per inmate — $52.07

End-of-year offender populations
• Total under DOC jurisdictional control — 27,803
• Demographics:
• Male — 25,342
• Female — 2,461
• Black — 15,034
• White — 12,628
• Other — 141

System at a glance
• Major correctional facilities — 16
• Community-based facilities — 12
• Contracted prison beds at year end — 350
• Total staff at year end — 3,192
• Security staff at year end — 2,146
• Inmate-to-correctional officer ratio — 14.3:1
• Average monthly in-house inmate population — 22,146
• Overall recidivism rate — 31.5 percent

Source: Alabama Department of Corrections FY2017 Annual Report