Harsh sentencing laws coupled with chronic underfunding have led to horrific conditions for people behind bars

For years, Alabama’s prison system has been under a microscope. Harsh sentencing laws coupled with chronic underfunding have led to horrific conditions for people behind bars. 

As a result, the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) is facing multiple federal lawsuits, including a class action filed by the SPLC. A federal judge in the SPLC’s broader case over the lack of adequate health care and aid for people with disabilities has ruled that mental health care in the system is “horrendously inadequate.” Now, the state faces a trial set for 2020 on whether the lack of health care for prisoners amounts to deliberate indifference for their welfare. 

Dozens of people have died in homicides, suicides, overdoses and use-of-force killings this year alone. A blistering report from the Department of Justice, released earlier this year, concluded that the conditions in Alabama’s prisons likely violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibitionagainst cruel and unusual punishment.

The state’s proposed solution to overcrowding and under-staffing is to build three new prisons for men – prisons that would actually be built by private companies and leased to the state. Each would hold 3,000 to 3,500 people — about twice as many as Alabama’s largest existing prison. Officials continue to make spurious claims that the project will save the state money, despite the plan’s $900 million price tag. 

Gov. Kay Ivey convened a group of legislators and state officials to meet over the past several months to hear presentations and proposals by various experts, state officials and the public hoping to address the crisis. Yet, the plan to build new prisons remains the likely course of action for the governor and legislature.

Beyond the scathing reports by the Montgomery Advertiser, the voices of currently and formerly incarcerated people and their families were largely missing from the media narrative around Alabama’s prison crisis in the first half of 2019.

The Southern Poverty Law Center joined several organizations and individuals to form the Alabama Coalition for Fair Justice to elevate those voices and advocate for policy changes, such as a repeal of the Habitual Felony Offender Act and a re-defining of “violent crime.” 

As a part of this initiative, the SPLC introduced a series of profiles — Beyond Bars: Life Before and After Incarceration in Alabama — that elevates the voices of people directly affected by the criminal justice system.

The profiles

Sonia Turley-Landers is a Native American poet and artist who told the SPLC about the creative writing class that helped her survive in prison, the abuse and terror she experienced at the hands of a partner, and losing her father while she was incarcerated. “When you’re in the darkness, and a little light comes to you, you follow that light,” she said of the creative writing class.

Frances Everson spent 20 years in and out of Alabama’s prison system, a journey that began with simple theft crimes. She experienced trauma — the deaths of her brother and sister — at a young age that led her to develop a substance-use habit and an urge to compulsively take items from department stores. Instead of providing her options for rehabilitation, Alabama’s criminal justice system wrote her off as someone who could never change her behavior. “It is my opinion that keeping Ms. Everson in jail is the only way to keep her from stealing someone else’s property,” a prosecutor from one of her cases once wrote. In 2004, France was released from prison for the last time and has since reconnected with her mother, daughters and grandchildren. She has devoted her life to helping others through Faith in Action Alabama.

Archie Hamlett was released from prison after serving nearly 23 years of a life-without-parole sentence. After years of fighting, he finally won a sentence reduction in 2017. But, he said, in the free world he soon found another obstacle to his freedom: more than $34,000 in court debt. “It’s predatory in nature, what they’re doing to us,” Archie said of the fees. “It keeps a noose around our neck. I know that might seem heavy, but that’s what it feels like to me.”

Chris “Champ” Napier grew up in Prichard, Alabama’s poorest city. He witnessed his father get shot and killed when he was 3 and experienced violence and racism throughout his childhood and adolescence in the 1970s and ‘80s. After getting caught up in a drug deal gone wrong, Champ was sentenced to life in prison for murder when he was 18. He spoke to at-risk youth about corruption and violence behind bars before he knew he would ever be free from prison. After 14 years, he was paroled but had a difficult time finding employment and housing due to the many collateral consequences that formerly incarcerated individuals tend to face. Champ was pardoned completely of his crime in 2015 and was able to vote for the first time in the 2016 election at age 45. It was powerful. “Our vote is our voice,” he said.

The SPLC’s series will continue to run bi-weekly until the Alabama Legislature convenes for its 2020 regular session on Feb. 4.

The Editors

Calling for an 'End to Violence,' Bernie Sanders Becomes First 2020 Democratic Presidential Contender to Criticize Bolivian Coup

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) speaks to the media
after the second night of the first Democratic presidential debate
on June 27, 2019 in Miami. (Photo: Cliff Hawkins/Getty Images)

Published on

Monday, November 11, 2019

 by

Common Dreams

"I am very concerned about what appears to be a coup in Bolivia, where the military, after weeks of political unrest, intervened to remove President Evo Morales."

by

Eoin Higgins, staff writer

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday became the first 2020 Democratic presidential 

candidate to speak out against Sunday's military coup in Bolivia which saw that 

country's President Evo Morales forced to resign before going into hiding.

"I am very concerned about what appears to be a coup in Bolivia, where the military,

 after weeks of political unrest, intervened to remove President Evo Morales," Sanders 

tweeted. "The U.S. must call for an end to violence and support Bolivia's democratic 

institutions."

The Vermont senator's comments came after a day of mounting pressure to speak out 

from his left-wing grassroots movement. Earlier Monday, as Common Dreams

reported, Sanders supporter Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) condemned the 

coup in no uncertain terms."The people of Bolivia deserve free, fair, and peaceful 

elections," said Ocasio-Cortez, "not violent seizures of power." Sanders' expression of

support for Morales was welcomed by supporters."By far the biggest difference

between Bernie and the rest of the Democratic candidates is how well versed he is in

and how much he cares about the type of international left issues that, say, The Nation

writes a lot about," said reporter Matthew Zeitlin.Earlier Monday, Sanders released a 

new plan to help veterans; held a town hall with veterans in Des Moines, Iowa 

and published at Jewish Currents an essay on combatting anti-Semitism.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/11/calling-end-violence-bernie-sanders-becomes-first-2020-democratic-presidential?cd-origin=rss&utm_term=AO&utm_campaign=Daily%20Newsletter&utm_content=email&utm_source=Daily%20Newsletter&utm_medium=Email

Tulsi Gabbard's Campaign Releases Letter on Hillary Clinton’s Defamation of Congresswoman Gabbard

LOS ANGELES — Presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard’s (U.S. Rep, Hawaii) campaign’s legal counsel released the following letter today concerning Hillary Clinton’s defamation of Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard.  Dear Secretary Clinton: We write you on behalf of our client Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. On October 17, 2019, you published this statement on the podcast Campaign HQ With David Plouffe: “I’m not making any predictions, but I think they’ve got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate. She’s the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far. And, that’s assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not because she’s also a Russian asset. Yeah, she’s a Russian asset. I mean, totally.” One day after making this statement, CNN asked your spokesman whether this statement was made about Congresswoman Gabbard. He responded yes: “If the nesting doll fits.” Your statement is defamatory, and we demand that you retract it immediately. The statement is false. Congresswoman Gabbard is not being groomed by Russia to be a third-party candidate. Nor is she a Russian asset. Rather, she is a patriotic loyal American, a sitting four-term United States Congresswoman and a Major in the United States Army National Guard. As such, she is a loyal American who has taken an oath declaring her allegiance to the United States of America both as a soldier and as a member of Congress. She has been serving for over 16 years in the Army National Guard, having voluntarily deployed twice to war zones in the Middle East. It appears you may now be claiming that this statement is about Republicans (not Russians) grooming Gabbard. But this makes no sense in light of what you actually said. After you made the statement linking Congresswoman Gabbard to the Russians, you (through your spokesman) doubled down on it with the Russian nesting dolls remark. This Republicans-not-Russians spin developed only after you realized the defamatory nature of your statement, and therefore your legal liability, as well as the full extent of the public backlash against your statement. Moreover, the Republicans-not-Russians spin cannot explain away your statement that Congresswoman Gabbard is “a Russian asset.” That is, of course, because your Republicans-not-Russians spin is rubbish. In any event, this strained interpretation bears no legal weight. Defamation claims are not determined by the speaker’s post-hoc rationalizations. They are determined by how the statement was “read and understood by the public . . . .” Here, the public universally understood your statement exactly as you intended to be understood, and exactly as you made it: that Tulsi Gabbard—a sitting Congresswoman, U.S. Army Major, and candidate for President of the United States—is a Russian asset. This is how your statement was understood by those in political circles, such as Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Beto O’Rourke, Senator Bernie Sanders, and Andrew Yang. In making the statement, you knew it was false. Congresswoman Gabbard is not a Russian asset and is not being groomed by Russia. Besides your statement, no law enforcement or intelligence agencies have claimed, much less presented any evidence, that Congresswoman Gabbard is a Russian asset. This fabricated story is so facially improbable that it is actionable as defamation. In light of this, we demand that you immediately hold a press conference to verbally retract—in full—your comments. We also demand that you immediately publish this full and fair retraction on the twitter account @HillaryClinton, and distribute it to CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post: On October 17, 2019, I made certain statements about Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. Among other things, I accused her of being a Russian asset and that Russia was grooming her to be a third-party presidential candidate. I was wrong. I never should have made these remarks, and I apologize. I did not have any basis for making the statements. I acknowledge my grave mistake and error in judgment in this matter. I support and admire the work that Congresswoman Gabbard has done and will continue to do in serving our country. Journalists with questions should reach out to press@tulsi2020.com and cullen@tulsi2020.com.

About Tulsi Gabbard:   Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is the first female combat veteran to ever run for US president and, along with Tammy Duckworth, one of the first two female combat veterans elected to Congress. Currently a major in the Army National Guard, she has served for more than 16 years and deployed twice to the Middle East.   Tulsi is a Democrat and was first elected to Congress in 2012. She has served there for more than 6 years, including on the Homeland Security, Foreign Affairs, and Armed Services Committees.   Tulsi was Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee from 2013 until she resigned in 2016 to endorse Bernie Sanders in his bid for President.   Tulsi’s campaign for president is powered completely by people. She does not accept campaign contributions from corporations, lobbyists, or any political action committees.   Tulsi was born a US citizen on April 12, 1981 in American Samoa. When she was two years old, her family moved to Hawaii, where she grew up. As is typical of many residents of Hawaii, she is of mixed ethnicity — Asian, Caucasian, and Polynesian descent.   More Information and Updates from Tulsi Gabbard:   TULSI2020.com https://twitter.com/tulsigabbard https://facebook.com/tulsigabbard https://medium.com/@tulsigabbard https://youtube.com/tulsigabbard https://instagram.com/tulsigabbard   ###

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Civil Rights Memorial commemorates 30 years

Carolyn Wells Gee was in bed watching TV with her younger sister when she heard the shot that killed Medgar Evers. 

Gee, now 71, and who still lives in the Jackson, Mississippi, house next door to where the civil rights martyr was killed by Klansmen, was a high school student on June 12, 1963, when the shot rang out late at night.

“I looked out the window and I could see, he [had fallen and] was halfway like on the steps,” she said, adding that Evers’ children were standing there. “There was a lot of blood, and they were just screaming.”

Gee’s father rushed out of his house and fired two shots into the air to scare off the shooter. Her father and another neighbor placed Evers on a mattress, loaded him into a station wagon, and drove him to the hospital rather than wait on an ambulance that would never arrive.

Evers, an NAACP field secretary for Mississippi who organized voter registration efforts and economic boycotts, is one of the martyrs whose names are inscribed on the Civil Rights Memorialin Montgomery, Alabama. The Memorial will mark its 30^th anniversary beginning Monday. 

The Memorial, dedicated by the SPLC on Nov. 5, 1989, honors 40 people killed during the modern civil rights movement, a period framed by the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. 

The martyrs selected for the Memorial fit at least one of three criteria: They were murdered because they were active in the movement; they were killed as acts of terror aimed at intimidating the black community and civil rights activists; or, their deaths, like that of Emmett Till, helped to galvanize the movement by demonstrating the brutality faced by African Americans in the South.

Their sacrifices are not lost on Gee, particularly on Election Day. “I vote all the time,” she said. “You got to try to put people in office who you think are going to help the community. I mean, people died for our right to vote.”

Today, the Memorial provides thousands of visitors each year with a vehicle for education and reflection about the struggles for equality. It is located just yards from the church that King pastored when he led the Montgomery Bus Boycott that sparked the movement.

“As we celebrate 30 years of the Civil Rights Memorial, we are reminded that everyday people – including each and every one of us – have the power to bring about social change by standing up and speaking out against injustice,” said Tafeni English, director of the Civil Rights Memorial Center (CRMC). “The 40 names of civil rights martyrs inscribed on the Memorial provide lessons on the courage, commitment and sacrifices these individuals made in the past to bring us where we are today, and they inspire us to continue the march until justice is a reality for everyone in society.” 

The commemoration activities will begin at 6 p.m. on Monday, with a panel discussion examining current voting rights issues and the civil rights movement. The discussion will be broadcast on Facebook Live. During the voting rights panel, Nancy Abudu, deputy legal director for voting rights at the SPLC, will discuss voting rights in Alabama and the SPLC’s work in the Deep South.  

On Tuesday, Montgomery Mayor-elect Steven Reed, who will become the city’s first black mayor, will deliver an address during a “Day of Remembrance” ceremony. Participants will lay a wreath and flowers on the Memorial to honor the civil rights martyrs. The day’s events, which begin at 11:30 a.m., will include remarks by SPLC Interim President Karen Baynes-Dunning and special performances by the Park Crossing High School Choir under the direction of Darrian Stovall. 

During the ceremony, the SPLC will announce the winner of the CRM30 Art Competition, a contest open to all Montgomery public school students in grades nine-12. Participants were asked to create an original drawing, painting, or other two-dimensional medium related to the modern civil rights movement. First-, second- and third-place winners will receive cash awards, and their artwork will be displayed at the event.  

Also in honor of the anniversary, the CRMC, an interpretive center behind the Memorial, will offer free admission to visitors on Tuesday. All anniversary events are free and open to the public.

‘Let us rededicate ourselves to freedom’s fight’

When the Memorial was dedicated three decades ago, 6,000 people gathered to witness the dedication of the nation’s first monument to the martyrs of the movement. Water emerges from the center of a round, black granite table and flows evenly across the top, where the names of martyrs and the history of the movement are inscribed. 

Behind the table, water cascades over a curved black granite wall inscribed with a paraphrase from the Bible’s Book of Amos that King quoted on several occasions: “… until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” The Memorial was designed by Maya Lin, creator of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

During the dedication ceremony 30 years ago, the crowd heard from Rosa Parks, whose refusal to yield her bus seat to a white passenger in 1955 sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott and energized the civil rights movement. Parks reminded the crowd that the march for justice was far from over – a sentiment that continues to undergird the SPLC’s work today.

“It never ends,” Parks said. “But we are living in hope that the future, as we gather for peace, justice, good will and the priceless life of all, that we will not have to mourn the dead but rejoice in the fact that we, as a nation of peace-loving people, will overcome any obstacle against us.” 

Since the dedication ceremony in 1989, hundreds of thousands of people have visited the Memorial to pause and reflect on the names of those who made the ultimate sacrifice for justice and equality. Busloads of schoolchildren visit on a regular basis, and U.S. Rep. John Lewis – himself an icon of the movement – leads wreath-laying ceremonies with congressional and civil rights leaders.

The ensuing decades, however, saw the black granite of the Memorial table deteriorate. On Aug. 6, the 54th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, the table was replaced. The newly installed table records exactly the same names that were on the previous one. But the names on the new version are more deeply ingrained in the table, making it easier for visitors to see them and run their fingers across them through the water.

This Monday and Tuesday, we invite you to join us in the Civil Rights Memorial’s 30^th anniversary events, as we honor those who died for voting and other civil rights. And, as the SPLC’s first president, the late Julian Bond, noted to the crowd that gathered in 1989, it is an opportunity to look to the future and the challenges that remain.

“Let us rededicate ourselves to freedom’s fight,” Bond said. “Let us gather, not in recrimination, but in reconciliation, remembrance and renewed resolve.”

The Editors of SPLC "Week in Review"