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| Alabama prisons struggle with overcrowding, underfunding |
| By Birmingham News |
| Published: 08/27/2003 |
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After 16 hours in the un air-conditioned maximum-security prison, as one of three officers circulating through and herding 288 of the most dangerous criminals in the Alabama penal system, Marcus Atchison drove an hour to his home, made it to bed after midnight, and was up at 4 a.m. to be back on duty at William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility at 6. Atchison and 178 other corrections officers keep watch over 1,735 inmates at the west Jefferson County prison designed to hold 992 prisoners. According to Warden Stephen Bullard, the prison should have 288 officers. Lacking money to hire, train and retain enough officers, Bullard has made overtime mandatory. Most officers are working two overtime shifts a week. The situation at Donaldson is not unique. Alabama's prison system holds twice as many inmates as it was designed to hold. According to U.S. Department of Justice statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau, Alabama spends less per inmate than any other state. And according to 2002 statistics from the American Corrections Association, Alabama had the highest ratio of inmates to corrections officers among 45 states surveyed. Ten years ago, Alabama had the same number of officers guarding 7,000 fewer inmates. A federal court has ordered the state to relieve crowding at Tutwiler Prison for Women and a state court has ordered the state to take in its inmates who are clogging county jails. To cope, the state is lodging prisoners at private prisons in Mississippi and Louisiana. Gov. Bob Riley has promised to address the corrections problem if his $1.2 billion tax and accountability package passes. But if the proposal fails, the governor's budget calls for an 18 percent to 20 percent cut to corrections. At that level, the state would be spending $3 million less on corrections than it spent in 1997, when the state had 6,000 fewer prisoners. Bullard can't imagine further cuts. The roof at Donaldson, in need of a $2.5 million repair job, leaks and each rain does more damage. |
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