A proposed bill, HB618, would allow Alabama to send people incarcerated in the state to foreign prisons.
“This bill would authorize the Commissioner of the Department of Corrections to enter into contracts with foreign nations to confine Alabama inmates in a penal institution or correctional facility,” the legislation states.
But the bill was not filed with any intent for it to pass, according to the bill sponsor Rep. Chris Sells, R-Greenville.
Sells told AL.com that he understands the bill will not pass this legislative session with two weeks left and knows that it would meet legal challenges due to federal protections for those incarcerated.
Sells said the legislation was meant to send a message that more should be done to protect law abiding citizens.
Sells said he was inspired by seeing El Salvador’s prisons and believes that if people feared being sent to prisons there it may deter crime.
El Salvador’s prisons became a topic of discussion in America after President Donald Trump’s administration sent hundreds of migrants to the foreign country’s infamous, CECOT prison, in March after accusing detainees of being gang members.
Human rights advocates have voiced that El Salvador’s prisons, primarily CECOT, are brutal and inhumane.
“I think if we were to send a couple prisoners down there and, if people thought they were going to get treated like that in prison, I don’t think they’ll commit the crimes,” Sells said.
“I think there need to be more (consequences) to breaking the laws and killing people than we have.”
Alabama has one of the highest incarceration rates per capita in the world and those convicted of murder in the state can face life sentences or capital punishment.
El Salvador has the highest incarceration rate in the world achieved under Nayib Bukele’s regime. Human rights organizations say this is due to Bukele’s regime operating like a police state after suspending due process rights and arresting people under mere allegations of gang affiliation.
Sells also said he is not advocating to be like El Salvador, which incarcerates the most people in the world, or be cruel to prisoners.
But he does think America’s prisons are, “soft.”
“I’m not trying to say we need to abuse prisoners,” Sells said.
“But I’m just saying that maybe our prisons are too soft nowadays. These other countries, I think, are way better at maintaining more order. And we can’t do that because of our federal laws.”
These “federal laws” include the Constitution which protects incarcerated people from cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment.
Trump’s administration has already said it is considering the legality of sending American born incarcerated individuals to foreign prisons.
Civil rights advocates contend sending incarcerated people to foreign prisons would constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
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