America’s mega-prison nightmare

A number of towering mega-prisons are set to take over America’s legal system as officials look to beef up their fight against out-of-control prison populations and crumbling infrastructure. 

Last month, Alabama lawmakers landed on a staggering $1.08 billion price tag to construct the nation’s largest prison, adding a 4,000 bed facility in an expensive attempt to solve the state’s overcrowding epidemic.  

And America’s fondness for incarcerating its citizens, which has seen the nation’s prison population grow by over 500 percent in the last 40 years, according to The Sentencing Project, has caused several other states follow suit.

Nebraska is readying to spend $350 million on a new 1,500 bed facility, and Georgia lawmakers have been tasked by the Fulton County Board of Commissioners to procure funds for a staggering $1.69 billion, 4,500 bed prison. 

And the most expensive new mega-prison is a four-facility replacement for New York’s infamous Rikers Island jail – with just one construction in Brooklyn reportedly set to cost $3 billion.  

But while authorities insist the supersized prisons are a vital move amid crumbling infrastructure and poor sanitation, critics argue that the huge spending does little to address the causes for America’s sky-high incarceration rates. 

Plans to introduce several exorbitant prisons come amid mounting problems for the nation’s justice system. Critics say the United States is too quick to imprison – but also bemoan the poor condition of many existing prisons, meaning updates are vital. 

They’ve also stressed that a prisoner’s punishment is the denial of their liberty – and that those behind bars should not be punished further with horrific living conditions.  

The US holds the sixth highest incarceration rate in the world at 531 inmates per 100,000 people, by far the highest among advanced nations. 

In Alabama, prisons operated at 167 percent of their designed capacity in 2017, according to The Appeal, an issue that has grown to where former inmate Daymario Massey told WVTM one-man cells ‘may have three people in them, two on beds and one on the floor.’ 

Last month officials in the state landed on $1.08 billion to add 4,000 beds to their roster, yet critics raised eyebrows at the huge sum, including Alabama Congresswoman Terri Sewell. 

‘Many in Alabama don’t have access to food, running water, and health care,’ she said in a tweet. ‘It is unconscionable that state leaders would spend over $1 billion to construct the most expensive super-prison in the nation. This should outrage everyone!’ 

Nevertheless, Republican Governor Kay Ivey has branded the new facility ‘critically important’, and it is set to become the largest in the United States. 

Alabama officials have also seemingly attempted to turn the tide by including designated spaces for enhanced medical and mental health treatment, substance abuse and addiction treatment and educational services to inmates. 

The Alabama mega-prisons would be expected to be completed in May 2026, with Nebraska’s slated to begin construction in the fall of 2024, and Georgia’s newest facility would be expected to open in 2029. 

Many of the nation’s prisons have also faced allegations of squalid conditions and poor services for inmates, issues that led to the closure of the infamous Metropolitan Correctional Center shortly after Jeffrey Epstein killed himself in the Manhattan jail. 

But some claim that the titanic costs that come with replacing them are a short-sighted solution that fails to meet the reasons for America’s incarceration epidemic. 

‘No experts have said that newer jails will solve our prison crisis,’ Charlotte Morrison, a senior attorney at prison-reform nonprofit Equal Justice Initiative, told Yahoo News. 

‘If you have a football team that’s losing year after year, a new stadium doesn’t make it better. You need new leadership.’

She noted the lack of rehabilitation-focused programs in US prisons, with a shocking 67.5 percent of released inmates re-offending within five years, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. 

‘The more beds there are, the more people will be put in them,’ added Bianca Tylek, executive director of Worth Rises, a prison reform nonprofit. 

‘The issue is not the building… It’s the system and the system actors in it,’ she added. 

Data from the American Action Forum found that the US spends nearly $300 billion every year to police communities and incarcerate over two million people, with extra costs such as loss of earnings tripling the economic cost down the line.

This adds up to a $1.2 billion burden annually, raising questions over whether spending billions-more on beefed up prisons will solve the ongoing problem. 

Some highlight the phrase ‘educate or incarcerate,’ to highlight how many of those who end up behind bars grew up in poverty and were given little chance to make a life for themselves before turning to crime.  

However, officials in some states have insisted that they are a necessity, with overcrowding emerging as a particularly urgent issue. 

In Nebraska, the construction of a $350 million prison was welcomed by even the most skeptical of local lawmakers as the state struggles with some of the nation’s most overcrowded facilities. 

‘Right now, we are literally building a prison we know will be overcrowded,’ said State Senator Justin Wayne to Nebraska TV. 

A package of smaller reforms has also been passed by the state legislature in recent years focusing on finding the root cause of Nebraska’s surging prison population, alongside pushing forward paroles for some inmates. 

But the dire state of Nebraska’s prisons led to the huge sum making it through the legislature earlier this year, with State Senator Bruce Bostelman insisting at the time that it is ‘important to hold the most serious offenders accountable.’ 

‘It pains me to go out and spend the kind of dollars we’re talking on a new prison but at the same time we have to protect the public,’ added Sen. Tom Briese.   

In Georgia, a staggering $1.69 billion sum has been named as the price to build a 4,500 bed replacement for the Fulton County Jail, which has earned an unenviable reputation as one of the most squalid jails in America.

The facility’s problems were notably brought to a head last month, when inmate Shawndre Delmore, 24, became the sixth prisoner to die behind bars since July, and the tenth since the start of the year. 

‘I don’t think building another jail is the solution. I think alleviating the crowding in the jail, providing for more health care services and mental health services (will help),’ added Gerald Griggs, a leader of the Georgia NAACP, to WSB-TV. 

While some prison replacements have been staunchly opposed, New York’s Rikers Island has been the subject of widespread condemnation for years that resulted in a law mandating it to be shut down by August 2027. 

The building is almost a century old, sits on a landfill that emits toxic gas, and is frequently cited for deaths in custody, squalid conditions and failing infrastructure. Last year, the jail had one of its most deadly years to date with nineteen inmates losing their lives behind bars. 

Four replacement facilities in separate boroughs have been planned, including one in Brooklyn that has already fallen two years behind schedule and is set to cost, by itself, a staggering $3 billion. 

The Big Apple jail is one perhaps the epitome of America’s complex prison problems, as the crumbling building is widely hated yet replacing it adds a huge burden to the city. 

New York City is also known for its progressive leaders who are behind efforts to replace the island hellhole.  

‘Delaying closure of that dangerous place undermines public safety, and puts staff and incarcerated people alike at grave risk,’ said Jonathan Lippman, chairman of the Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform, to Bloomberg. 

The new plans are aimed at reducing the city’s jail population from 5,900 down to a maximum of 3,300 people, a proposal that some have questioned despite the need for a substitute to Rikers Island.