During his weekly “Ask Doug Live” livestream Sunday, Democratic nominee for governor Doug Jones announced a plan to bring what he called independent oversight and greater accountability to Alabama’s prison system.
“Alabamians deserve a prison system that keeps people safe, respects taxpayers and operates with transparency,” Jones’ campaign said in a news release.
“The governor appoints the prison commissioner. We need to get somebody in there who is going to open it up, look under every hood, everywhere you can go,” Jones said. “I think there needs to be an independent commission, an independent review agency that is looking at the prison system, how it’s running and the money that’s being spent.”
Jones, a former United States attorney who prosecuted violent crime, public corruption and terrorism cases, later represented clients in criminal cases before serving on the United States Senate Judiciary Committee. He cited his decades of experience in the criminal justice system as informing his call for greater transparency and accountability in Alabama’s prison system.
“It’s a horrible thing when the spotlight on our prison conditions and the deaths and the beatings that occur had to be shown from cellphones that were smuggled in by guards and given to the inmates,” Jones told viewers.
The cellphone videos Jones referenced were later featured in the Oscar-nominated documentary “The Alabama Solution,” which chronicles violence and conditions inside Alabama’s prison system.
“We’ve got to have a better approach,” Jones said. “This is going to be a real issue for the next governor, and we intend to tackle it.”
