If Alabama officials are looking for advice on how to reduce overcrowding in Alabama's prisons, Lyndahl Sale would happily oblige.
Sale is a few months away from completing 15 years in the Alabama prison system, ample time to ponder how overcrowding affects him and his fellow inmates.
"I haven't seen them take a bed out of the penitentiary since I've been incarcerated," said Sale, one of four inmates at Elmore state prison who spoke to The Associated Press in a recent interview. "I've seen them add plenty. I've never seen them take any out."
That Alabama prisons are overcrowded comes as no surprise. More than 20 years ago a federal judge ordered a mass release of inmates because of jam-packed cellblocks, and the inmate population - now more than 28,000 - has continued to grow far faster than the number of beds. Prisons built to hold 500 or 600 inmates routinely pack in more than a thousand.
Gov. Bob Riley and Corrections Commissioner Donal Campbell, on the job for just over a year now, have tried to ease the problem by shipping prisoners out of state temporarily and doubling the members of a parole board that has fallen months behind.
On those measures, the inmates have some ideas of their own - particularly when it comes to paroles. Robert Ray would like to change the current system that allows some cases to be delayed while others are moved up.
But Campbell said increased paroles aren't the only answer.
"Inmates are being paroled, somewhat sooner now than maybe before, but the intake is continuing, and we anticipate the violation of parole rate to increase," he said during an interview this month.
As for their stint in a private prison in Tutwiler, Miss., the men gave high marks to the cleanliness and "chow benefits," but said it was harder for most of their families to visit them.