In 2024, there were 277 deaths in Alabama Prisons. Never before have we known the demographic data, stories, and causes behind these deaths. Here’s what we found.
ADOC Staff Contribute To Deaths
In 2019, ADOC’s own staff members reported to the DOJ that ‘without a doubt’ the number one-way contraband is getting into prison is by staff smuggling it in. During just three months in 2024, over 50,000 grams of illegal drugs were found in ADOC facilities. By November 2024, 38 ADOC staff members had been arrested for contraband. The failure of ADOC to accurately document causes of death limits the ability of policymakers to fully understand the deadly effects of contraband within its system.
No Accountability, No Answers
Deandre Roney was planning to celebrate his 40th birthday and the holidays at home with his family in November 2024. Instead, Mr. Roney was one of four people who died at William C. Donaldson Correctional Facility via stabbing. At the time of his death, Mr. Roney was set to be released from prison in just 150 days.
A Prison Sentence is a Death Sentence
At just 31 years old, Chase Mathis died at Elmore Correctional Facility on June 4, 2024. Before Mr. Mathis’s incarceration, he had battled an addiction to prescription pain pills. He never received treatment or addiction counseling within ADOC. Mr. Mathis, who was wheelchair-bound, also did not receive regular access to meals. Mr. Mathis was suspected to have died by someone intentionally giving him a fatal cocktail of drugs.
After Death, Organs Go Missing
In 2024, as the families of Charles Singleton, Brandon Dotson, Kelvin Moore, and too many others prepared to lay their loved ones to rest, they were confronted with an unfathomable reality: the internal organs of their family members were removed and retained without consent during autopsies. Charles Singleton died in 2021 at age 74, while serving his sentence at the Hamilton Aged and Infirmed Center. When his daughter received his body, he had decomposed, and his organs were missing - never to be recovered.
Death (and carceral) Capital Of The World
Alabama is internationally known for its rates of incarceration. As of 2024, with an incarceration rate of 898 per 100,000 residents, Alabama locked up a higher percentage of its people than any independent democratic country on earth.
Read more findings from the report and see our reccomendations here.
Date
Wednesday, April 16, 2025 - 3:15pm
Featured image
Show featured image
Hide banner image
Documents
Show related content
Tweet Text
[node:title]
Type
Menu parent dynamic listing
Show PDF in viewer on page
Style
Standard with sidebar
Show list numbers
Step Aside Project 2025, We Have a Vision for 2030. The ACLU of Alabama is proud to release its first-ever public strategic plan moving towards 2030. This report states who we are, our values, and our intended impact on the state of Alabama.
The ACLU of Alabama’s Vision 2030 is grounded in equity, justice, and representation, three time-tested principles of the Civil Rights Movement. We believe fundamentally in partnering with and listening to the communities we serve, understanding that those who have been impacted by specific issues are the true experts.
We have three core areas that we’ll focus on: Voting Rights, Gender Justice, and Criminal Legal Reform. Across these three issues, we are focusing on clear outcomes:
For Voting Rights, we want to increase Black voter turnout by 5% in statewide and national elections through the end of the 2026 election cycle. By 2028, we want to see consistent Black voter turnout between 55%-60% in the 2028 General Election.
For Gender Justice, we want to expand Medicaid for the general population and include coverage for midwifery services, out-of-hospital births, and contraception. We want to reduce maternal and infant mortality rates by increasing access to prenatal, natal, and postnatal care through legislation. We also want to restore gender-affirming care and abortion access.
For Criminal Legal Reform, we want to provide direct legal and social services to people seeking parole. We want to ensure that incarcerated people and their loved ones have increased awareness and skills to be successful in parole proceedings and, if granted, while on parole. We want to increase the number of individuals released from Alabama’s overcrowded prisons and remove 33 people from death row who had jury life verdicts.
Of course, our organization will always defend your First Amendment rights and continue to advocate for you in the courts and at the State House (or the People’s House as we like to call it).
We encourage you to read our report on how we want to do this work strategically and include our most important partner, YOU. This work is impossible without everyday Alabamians caring about the future of their family, community, and state. We thank you for your continued support and can’t wait to get things done by 2030 and beyond.
Join us by pledging to fight at the Statehouse in 2025 and come celebrate the 60th year of our organization in Selma.
Date
Thursday, January 9, 2025 - 2:00pm
Featured image
Show featured image
Hide banner image
Documents
Show related content
Tweet Text
[node:title]
Share Image
Type
Menu parent dynamic listing
Show PDF in viewer on page
Style
Standard with sidebar
Show list numbers
One out of every six bills the State Legislature introduced in 2023 punish Alabamians and fuel our humanitarian prison crisis. Read the full report.
We monitored 876 bills introduced in 2023. Here are three things we learned about your legislators.
- Legislators want harsher sentencing bills that continue overcrowding our prisons.
- Legislators more often pass bills that criminalize behavior rather than addressing the root cause.
- We’re spending more on incarcerating people year-over-year rather than releasing them.
The “Statehouse to Prison Pipeline,” a term we adopted from the ACLU of Ohio, is used to describe the policies that are proposed and/or enacted in Alabama’s legislature that address social problems exclusively through the criminal punishment system. In our third year of tracking pipeline bills in the legislature, we continue to witness a nearly unilateral commitment to increased surveillance, policing, criminalization, sentencing, and incarceration.
Our public schools are underfunded. Quality healthcare is unaffordable and inaccessible for most parts of the state. Public utilities and public transit are dilapidated or non-existent. And yet our tax dollars are being used to fund a billion-dollar prison. If we continue down the path of prioritizing punishment over people, Alabama’s communities will suffer.
The ACLU of Alabama and our partners are committed to fighting for positive and proactive legislation that will improve the material conditions of our state.
Date
Monday, January 15, 2024 - 3:00pm
Featured image
Show featured image
Hide banner image
Related issues
Criminal Legal Reform
Show related content
Tweet Text
[node:title]
Type
Menu parent dynamic listing
Show PDF in viewer on page
Style
Standard with sidebar
Show list numbers
Pages
