MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- Today, the Department of Justice released its latest report regarding the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC). This report detailed the pattern, practice, and culture of excessive use of force amongst corrections officers and the state’s role in allowing this brutality to continue unchecked. The report notes that from 2016 through 2018, ADOC only investigated a single employee for excessive force, even though the report later notes that “[u]ses of force are so commonplace in Alabama’s prisons that officers, even supervisors, watch other officers brutally beating prisoners and do not intervene.”
Randall Marshall, executive director, said:
“In light of this report -- the latest in a series of reports exposing failure and abuse in ADOC’s prisons -- the last thing ADOC needs is unfettered discretion and more taxpayer money in the form of billion dollar budgets to build prisons. They have failed by every measure. ADOC has failed to maintain their facilities. They have failed to adequately train and staff those facilities. They have failed to meet their constitutional duty to keep those incarcerated safe during their sentences. With a budget of over twenty seven percent of the Executive’s allocated budget from the general fund, ADOC has been and continues to be a badly managed investment for the people of Alabama. Buildings aren’t the problem; the system, and the lack of accountability and culture of brutality within it, is the problem. It’s time the state of Alabama acknowledges that with the seriousness it demands.”
