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Open letter Governor Ivey, Commissioner Dunn and the Alabama Legislature

The State of Alabama continues to pursue shortsighted, counterproductive solutions to the unprecedented crisis in Alabama prisons. Today the Alabama Department of Corrections announced the partial closure of Holman Correctional Facility and the abrupt transfer of over 600 people who had been housed there. Neither their families nor their lawyers were notified ahead of ADOC’s … Continued
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January 30, 2020

Prisons ask for $42 million budget increase in 2021

Thursday the House and Senate General Fund budget committees were in Montgomery for a rare joint session as all of the State General Fund (SGF) department heads made their 2021 budget requests. Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner Jeffrey S. Dunn requested $563 million in FY2021 – a $42 million increase from the 2020 budget. Dunn … Continued
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January 24, 2020

Prisons are one of the top issues to watch in 2020

A new decade has begun and the Legislature returns to Montgomery in just 29 days. As the Alabama Legislature begins a new session there are many issues that will confront the state politically in the upcoming year. Nothing is more serious than the issues facing the state and its much maligned prison system. Governor Kay … Continued
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January 6, 2020
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Prisons, rural healthcare and gaming need Alabama solutions

The problems that lay before the Alabama Legislature in the coming 2020 session are complex but not so Byzantine as to be unsolvable. Of the many tasks before state government is what to do about prisons, how to fix rural health care and how to profit from and regulate gaming. One of these issues alone … Continued
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December 27, 2019

County commissioners report: 2015 prison reform led to less prisoners in prison but more in county jails

Wednesday, the Executive Director of the Association of County Commissions of Alabama Sonny Brasfield told county commissioners that sentencing reform in 2015 has shifted more prisoners and the costs of those prisons from state prisons to county jails and county budgets. “I let you down,” Brasfield told the commissioners. In 2015, the state legislature passed … Continued
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December 11, 2019
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Building new prisons is not the answer

Alabama should be building better schools, not better prisons. It’s as simple as that. And the truth is if we had done that from the beginning we probably wouldn’t have the overcrowded prisons we have today. It’s a statistical fact that if a child can’t read at a third-grade level by the time they graduate … Continued
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December 6, 2019

NPR covers Alabama’s dangerous prisons, state announces prison commissioner receives award

Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner Jeff Dunn received a “National Outstanding Service” award, the department announced Thursday, the same day a nationally-syndicated radio program broadcast live from Birmingham about the state’s broken prison system.  Dunn has been selected for the 2019 Michael Francke Career Achievement Award by the Correctional Leaders Association (CLA). Kevin Kemph, executive … Continued
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November 15, 2019

Twenty Alabama prisoners killed this year

Thursday, Alabamians for Fair Justice released a statement critical of Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner Jeff Dunn’s tenure in charge of the state’s prisons. “Under Commissioner Dunn’s leadership, Alabama’s prison system is in a constitutional crisis,” the activist group claimed. “There have been at least 20 verified deaths due to homicide, suicide or overdose in … Continued
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November 15, 2019