The Republican leadership in the Alabama Senate announced Wednesday that they will no longer be pushing for the passage of Senate Bill 316, legislation that would establish independent oversight over the Alabama Department of Corrections, ADOC. Instead, SB316’s sponsor, State Senator Larry Stutts, R-District 6, announced the launch of a one-year prison oversight pilot program in collaboration with the Office of the Examiners of Public Accounts, EPA.
According to Stutts, the program will allow certain employees at the EPA to visit “three or four” ADOC prisons over the next year, collect data on the facilities’ conditions, report their findings to the public, and provide recommendations for improvement.
“We’re going to do that for the next year and then come back and address the need for possible legislation,” Stutts explained on the Senate floor.
The program differs from SB316, which would have established an office of “prison oversight coordinator” to monitor and inspect the treatment of inmates by ADOC and a “corrections oversight board” to review the coordinator’s findings. The bill would have also charged the State Bureau of Investigations, SBI, with investigating reported violations within Alabama’s prisons.
The decision to forego SB316 in favor of the pilot program came following a meeting between lawmakers and ADOC on Wednesday. Prior to that meeting, the Alabama Senate Judiciary Committee held a public hearing where community leaders, former inmates and family members called on lawmakers to pass Stutts’ legislation and institute prison oversight.
“There’s a lot of different moving parts, a lot of people involved, but I feel like we’ve arrived at a really good position that is going to make a difference with the Department of Corrections in the coming year and in the long term,” Stutts said.
Senate Pro Tem Garlan Gudger, R-Cullman, thanked both Stutts and the families who have pushed for prison reform in the state.
“I wanted to say thank you [Senator Stutts] for your leadership, I wanted to say thank you to the families that’s helped bring this all together,” Gudger said. “We’re exponentially further along because of you.”
Alabama Appleseed–a nonpartisan research and advocacy organization focused on criminal justice reform in the state–celebrated Wednesday’s announcement as a step in the right direction.
“The newly announced pilot program to create more outside oversight of the Department of Corrections is positive movement that we are proud of,” said Elaine Burdeshaw, Appleseed’s policy and advocacy director. “We believe this program will help bring some sunshine to a department that has long been shrouded in darkness, creating more transparency for the legislature, public, and families.”
“We are grateful to Senator Stutts, Pro Tem Gudger, and all the state departments who came to the table to make this possible,” Burdeshaw continued. “Most of all, we are grateful to the families and currently and formerly incarcerated people who continue to inform both our work on this issue and the solutions that will address it. As Pro Tem Gudger said, we wouldn’t be where we are now without them.”
Senator Stutts did not immediately respond to APR’s request for comment regarding when the pilot program would officially go into effect and which ADOC facilities would be subject to oversight under the program.
