t is fairly common knowledge by this point that Alabama’s prison system is among the worst in the country, not only in terms of mass incarceration and stringent parole rates, but also the horrific and even lethal conditions of the prison facilities themselves.
Journalist John H. Glenn joined The Valley Labor Report last week to talk about how this condition is only worsening over time.
“Last year [only] 10% of those eligible received their parole, which, when you compare it to the five years prior — five years prior it was over half of those eligible for parole,” Glenn said on the program, commenting on how Alabama’s parole system has become much more restrictive and merciless. “For this year, it’s 6%, which, out of the given 1400 folks that were eligible in this current fiscal year, that’s like, what, almost a hundred, maybe less.”
Why is this happening? Glenn admitted uncertainty as to the answer. “[It may] have to do with a vengeful board that simply wants to keep people in prison; it could just be that there are just stricter criteria for parole than there used to be. It’s obvious that, if there’s not a concerted effort, there’s at least an allowance of this low percentage of folks to go up for their parole.”
But stringent criteria and low parole rates are the least of the problems in the state’s prisons. The amount of deaths due to systemic negligence in Alabama’s prison system is staggering, which is what Glenn focuses most on with his reporting, in an effort to spread the word on how horrific these facilities and their practices are.
“Since the last time we spoke, the last time I was on this show [in October], 66 incarcerated individuals have died in [Alabama Department of Corrections] custody,” Glenn explained. “And within that period, in the week of Thanksgiving [2022], 9 incarcerated individuals died at 6 different correctional facilities. The day after Thanksgiving, 5 individuals… all died that same day.”
According to Glenn, the body of one of those inmates who died Thanksgiving week was left to rot in a prison cell bunk for several days. For another individual who died that week of an overdose, his body was allegedly buried in a pauper’s grave at a correctional facility without knowledge or consent by the individual’s family.
Watch the full discussion with John H. Glenn on the horrifying condition of Alabama’s prisons on YouTube: