We're not pushing back and saying no that didn't happen. "But it's the management decisions that the department made that brought Alabama to the to the crisis point that they're at today." "Understaffing, overcrowding - these are factors that affect virtually every prison system in the United States," says Morrison. Morrison says the underlying problem is a crisis of leadership. She says the state has failed to properly recruit and train staff, and condones a violent and punitive approach rather than focusing on rehabilitation. "The state has an enormous undertaking and given that it has allowed this crisis to continue for decades now," says Charlotte Morrison, a senior attorney with the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Ala., which advocates on behalf of prisoners. And in the forty years since then, Alabama has been forced by the courts to resolve a number of issues including a lack of mental health and medical care, a women's prison where male guards were sexually abusing female inmates, and using hitching posts and chain gangs to control inmates. Law Alabama Prisons Ruled 'Horrendously Inadequate,' Must Improveīack in the 1970s, the state's prisons were under federal control because of the same issue. It doesn't mean you're supposed to come and then have to fight for your life every day." "Your punishment is to come there and do your time. "People here in Alabama and people across the country, they'll see that, and read that and 'well they get what they deserve - they're convicts.' When I take the view that they're human beings," Wise says. Wise says it has spiraled out of control because it's hard to get people to care what goes on behind bars. He says basic security protocols are not in place, and often it's the guards who traffic in the contraband. "When you've got drugs and gambling and prostitution, cell phone trade going on inside prison, you're going to have violence," says Wise. But he says it's rampant in Alabama because there aren't enough officers to control it. "Most of it's about robbing and stealing, about cell phones and drugs," Wise says, noting that's an issue in most prisons. The findings from federal investigators about the violent conditions in the prisons are no surprise to David Wise, a former warden who worked in the Alabama Department of Corrections from 1983 until 2010. It doesn't mean you're supposed to come and then have to fight for your life every day. Your punishment is to come there and do your time. Rust-Bodke says her brother, Ryan Rust, was back in prison on a parole violation and found the conditions unbearable - like the time he couldn't get medical treatment for months after another inmate hit him in the head with a metal lock wrapped in a sock. So far this year there have been 8 homicides, and 8 suicides inside Alabama's prisons. It cites cases of inmate deaths, rapes, and extortion of the families of prisoners. Department of Justice has put the state of Alabama on notice to fix dangerous and deadly prison conditions or face a lawsuit that could result in a federal takeover of the prison system.įederal investigators found that Alabama routinely violates the constitutional rights of prisoners by failing to protect them from prisoner-on-prisoner attacks and sexual abuse. "That's the crimson color cause he is an Alabama fan," she says. She keeps his ashes in a gilded red urn in honor of his favorite college football team. "He's my little brother," says Harmony Rust-Bodke. In December, 33-year old Ryan Rust was found dead in his solitary cell at Alabama's Holman prison, a belt around his neck with one end tied to a bar in the cell window. Department of Justice has put the state of Alabama on notice to fix dangerous and deadly prison conditions or face a lawsuit that could result in a federal takeover of the prison system. He was found dead in a solitary prison cell at Alabama's Holman prison with a belt around his neck. Harmony Rust-Bodke holds a urn containing the ashes of her brother Ryan Rust.
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