On January 15, 2026, just down the street from the $1.25 billion Kay Ivey Correctional Complex, a fight broke out at Elmore Correctional Facility that claimed the lives of 35-year-old Damon Calhoun and 34-year-old Londell Nunn Jr.
Mr. Calhoun was serving an 18-year sentence for a third-degree burglary conviction, a Class C felony in Alabama. Mr. Nunn was serving a 10-year sentence for a first-degree robbery conviction. Their preventable deaths remind us that any prison sentence in Alabama can become a death sentence.
Less than two weeks later, the Legislature convened its quarterly Joint Prison Oversight Committee meeting at the Alabama State House. The loved ones of Alabama’s incarcerated population did what they always do when these meetings happen—they packed the House. They traveled for hours in the cold, wearing shirts and carrying signs memorializing those prematurely lost in the custody of the Alabama Department of Corrections. They did this just to be present, to bear witness, knowing that no public comment would be allowed at this meeting.
John Hamm briefly spoke at the meeting, but he did not mention Mr. Calhoun, Mr. Nunn, or any of the hundreds of people who have died under his tenure as ADOC Commissioner. Instead of addressing the dangerous and unconstitutional conditions inside Alabama prisons, he delegated his time to another ADOC official to give an overview of the limited programs that are offered in the prisons.
Legislators took issue with ADOC’s reporting about the long waitlists for rehabilitative programming and offered help and resources. But as we have seen before, ADOC was unwilling to acknowledge their lack of adequate solutions. “We have it under control,” we hear from ADOC every quarter. And every quarter, Alabamians who have traveled hours to demonstrate their commitment to their incarcerated loved ones leave these meetings disappointed.
Their frustration is justified: claims of control collapse under scrutiny, and ADOC’s own data exposes a system still in crisis.
ADOC’s latest quarterly report with data from April to June 2025 demonstrates that the prisons remain out of control. In those three months alone:
- over 35,000 grams of controlled substances, including 1,332 grams of fentanyl, were recovered;
- more than 700 weapons, including 156 knives, were confiscated;
- 207 sexual harassment and sexual abuse investigations were opened; and
- at least 49 deaths occurred.
Instead of demanding change, lawmakers predictably ended last week’s one-hour meeting without addressing the real issues plaguing Alabama’s prison system: premature and preventable deaths, proliferation of drugs and weapons, and widespread misconduct by ADOC staff. Commissioner Hamm shook hands with his staff as if a “job well done” was accomplished. Legislators hurried on with their days to hear from former Alabama football coach Nick Saban about education and took celebratory selfies with him. All while people are still dying in Alabama’s prisons.
We have waited for next year for too many years. It is past time for ADOC leadership to change. It is past time for legislators to pass laws that meaningfully reform our failed prison system. And it is past time to pass parole reform to ease the burdens of overcrowding and understaffing.
We demand more from our state officials than an hour-long meeting each quarter. We demand change now.
