Special session on Alabama prisons could come as late as January

A special session to address issues in the state prisons could come as late as Jan. 1, according to a key legislator in the process. 

Sen. Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, who has spearheaded most prison reform efforts over the past several years, said in an interview Friday that legislators needed time to gather data from the Alabama Sentencing Commission to consider potential changes to penalties for certain crimes, in the hopes of reducing the prison population.

“They told us that would be a minimum of three months,” Ward said. “Without all that data, all you’re doing is legislating from the heart instead of the brain.”

Ward had expressed a hope in May that the special session could take place in early October. A special session in January would creep up close to the beginning of the 2020 regular session, scheduled for Feb. 4, but Ward said it was important to “isolate” the issue in a separate session, where it would be the only item of business. 

In a damning report released in April, the U.S. Department of Justice detailed kidnappings, torture, and violence against inmates and staff in the state’s men’s prisons. The violence included homicides, stabbings, and sexual assaults. Among other findings, the report said a Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) officer told a sexual assault victim that because the inmate was in debt to another prisoner, he could do nothing. DOJ has warned the violence could lead to a federal lawsuit with the potential to place the state’s prison system in the hands of a judge. 

More:DOJ rips Alabama in graphic report for 'failing to protect' prisoners

Messages seeking comment were left Monday with Jay Town, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, and the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has sued the state over the medical and mental health care provided to inmates. 

The violence continues in the prisons, which housed 20,468 inmates in April in a system designed to hold 12,412 (164 percent capacity). At least four prisoners have been killed in Alabama correctional facilities since February. The Alabama Department of Corrections has increased its contraband seizures in recent months and is looking to hire an additional 500 correctional officers to address chronic staffing problems in the prisons. 

Legislators have said they want a special session to address the state’s decades-long problems with prison overcrowding and violence in full. The session will likely embrace some sort of prison construction component. Gov. Kay Ivey’s office has provided support for a “build-lease” proposal in which a private entity would build prisons that the state would lease back, an idea some legislators have expressed unease with. 

Changes to sentencing will likely play a role as well. The DOJ report said prison reform bills passed in 2015 had a “minimal” impact on overcrowding due to the closing of some facilities and the lack of retroactivity in the bill. Legislators may consider potential changes to laws ranging from looking at weights in marijuana-related crimes to the value thresholds used in certain property crimes. 

“This is going to be a big bite at that apple in terms of identifying the population that can be responsibly and safely addressed without sacrificing public safety,” said Rep. Christopher England, D-Tuscaloosa, on Monday. “If we’ve got several goals in mind, including building new prisons … you don’t’ want to deal with it without information to base it on.”

England said he wanted to see a “comprehensive” solution to the prison problem. But England was also wary of a build-lease approach to prison construction, saying it had the potential to divert money from supervision and rehabilitation programs aimed at reducing recidivism. 

More:Legislators seek special session to address Alabama prison crisis

“As far as prison construction, the price of failure is too high,” he said. “This needs to be a legislative solution.”

Ward said “you’re not going to wave a magic wand that’s going to solve this,” and said he did not want to create ineffective methods of addressing the issues in the state prisons.

“What will really cost money is constructing legislation and hoping it sticks, and then realizing a year later it doesn’t stick,” he said.

The decision to call a special session will be up to Ivey. Gina Maiola, a spokeswoman for Ivey, said Friday that the office was “months away” from knowing the need for a special session. 

“The governor has stayed in contact with legislative leadership on this, and made her continued commitment that all options remain on the table,” she said.