Gov. Kay Ivey (R-AL) presents herself as an ardent Christian. Addressing fellow believers last November, Ivey “encouraged everyone to speak the truth, love our neighbors, and seek to glorify God in all that we do.”
Love our neighbors and seek to glorify God in all that we do except, it seems, toward those incarcerated within Alabama’s gulag-style prison system.
Don’t misunderstand me, Alabama rightly imposes heavy custodial penalties on those who commit serious crimes or are habitual offenders. But as the U.S. Constitution rightly observes, justice and unusual cruelty are not the same thing. When individuals are imprisoned, they should be entitled to some basic standards of care: a degree of physical security, adequate food and medical care, and accountability when those standards are not delivered.
Unfortunately, beyond building new prisons and boosting salaries to help address a deep shortage of corrections staff, Ivey is utterly disinterested in improving the catastrophic conditions inside Alabama’s prisons. For Ivey’s administration, lucrative prisoner employment on state contracts appears to be the only thing that matters. The governor has led efforts to restrict parole releases even for nonviolent offenders who are well past their first parole eligibility dates. She has done little to nothing to address the hellscape that is the Alabama Department of Corrections.
In 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Alabama over what it described as prisons “riddled” with physical and sexual violence. Since then, things appear only to have gotten worse. In 2023, the already soaring rate of inmate assaults increased another 41%. When inmates express serious concern of coming to physical harm, the Alabama DOC policy appears to be to ignore them until they are killed. Air conditioning is inadequate across the prison system, leading to brutal conditions during the summer heat. Other problems seem born of a horror movie. Multiple inmate bodies have been returned to their families with missing organs, for example. Families have not been told where the organs went.
This isn’t just about out-of-control prison gang warfare and sky-high inmate death rates.
Take the story of one 22-year-old prisoner who was serving a one-year sentence for theft. Last October, Daniel Williams was hog-tied, sold as a sex slave, tortured and raped and left brain dead. His family say they were falsely told by Staton prison warden Joseph Headley that Williams had died of an overdose. Why Headley is a prison warden is another question worth contemplating. After all, he has received abysmal performance reports and has even been cited for harassing a female employee.
This sad tale points to other systemic problems. ABC 33/40 reported that the prime suspect in Williams’s murder had previously been cited for carrying weapons and had been accused of numerous sexual assaults. For some reason, however, the Alabama DOC gave the suspect a risk score of zero, allowing him free movement without restrictions. When the Washington Examiner twice asked Gov. Ivey’s office whether she had been briefed on this case or had discussed it with DOC Commissioner John Hamm, her office ignored those questions and instead referred the Washington Examiner to the Department of Corrections. The Alabama DOC told the Washington Examiner it was “awaiting the official autopsy report for inmate Williams to conclude the investigation. Once the investigation is complete, the case will go to the District Attorney’s office. In the meantime, the ADOC cannot comment about ongoing investigations.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Again, the issue here is not Alabama’s sentencing policies. The issue is whether prisoners are provided with a basic degree of human dignity. Although we should not seek Nordic-style prisons that bear more in common with hotels than places of incarceration, prison must involve punishment. Nor should we expect prison conditions that would require excessive taxpayer outlays.
But we should expect governors like Kay Ivey to do more than turn a blind eye to grave injustice. Ivey should speak her sermon to the mirror.
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