The overturning of Roe v. Wade, along with under-the-table planning, has led one imminent human rights atrocity to remain largely unattended to by Alabama citizens. Billions of taxpayer dollars are about to be spent on facilities designed to incarcerate Alabamians for the next thirty years.
Don’t worry if you did not know about them because that was their intention. After Alabamians across the state collectively stopped the state from building three mega-prisons only a year ago, they made a point to subvert the will of the people. In fact, there is even a clause in the contracts stating that the banks are not allowed to cave under “activist pressure."
Alabama intends to build two new prisons, one in Elmore County and one in Escambia County. They have a stated capacity of 4,000 prisoners each.
This will be funded by $400 million from the state’s COVID-19 relief funds, which could very well go toward healthcare or economic relief for the citizens who have lost their livelihoods. $163 million will be transferred from the state’s general fund, and $725 million in private bonds will be sold to fund the remainder of the project.
The aforementioned private bonds have a 30-year bond term, so for investors to get their returns, three more decades of incarceration for Alabamians will be guaranteed for the sake of making people money.
The state’s rationale for building new prisons can be traced back to the Department of Justice’s lawsuit in 2019 for the unconstitutional conditions inside its prisons. This lawsuit was not unprecedented, as one was previously filed in 1996 that cited the same concerns, to put it lightly, that we are seeing now.
The lawsuit notes brutal violence specifically among staff. Although overcrowded conditions are highlighted, it is explicitly stated that the construction will not solve the problems rampant in these facilities.
They provide funding for the construction of facilities for the provision of mental and physiological healthcare, but they include nothing for the practitioners who would provide it. If the space cannot be adequately used due to staffing, the only foreseeable use would be to house more people to hold more Alabamians captive in an oppressive and destructive system.
Draconian minimum sentencing laws, which hopelessly incarcerate people for catastrophically long periods of time, are the primary culprit for the current incarceration rate. Over 5,660 people are currently serving life sentences or life without parole, which encompass 26% of the overall Alabama Department of Corrections population. This makes immediate overcrowding of the prisons as soon as they are built inevitable.
They claim that they will close some of the prisons once the new ones are built. So, they will either continue to incarcerate more people, or the overcrowding issue will simply be moved to another facility. They’re using $1.3 billion, parts of which Alabamans will foot the bill for, to perpetuate a problem that they’re causing.
The lead banks underwriting the bonds are Stephens and Frazier-Lanier. Along with them, Wells Fargo and Raymond-James are also underwriting, and Regions is serving as a trustee.
Alabama Students Against Prisons, along with other organizations from the Communities Not Prisons Coalition, are organizing against this project. A rally is being held in Birmingham outside of the Wells Fargo and Regions Banks on 5th Avenue in Birmingham, Alabama, on June 27 at 9 a.m. We are asking all Alabamians to stand against this horrible waste of our financial resources.
Taylor Gusler is a graduate student pursuing a master's in social work.
The opinions expressed in columns and letters represent the views and opinions of their individual authors.
These opinions do not necessarily reflect the Auburn University student body, faculty, administration or Board of Trustees.
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