Consumer Law

Alabama Prisoners and Guards Agree: Substandard State Prisons are ?Unconstitutional?

By Andy Hoffman

It?s often been said that politics makes strange bedfellows, but one doesn?t often hear about prison guards joining prisoners who are suing over substandard prison conditions.

Nevertheless, a group of corrections officers from Donaldson Correctional Facility in Bessemer, Alabama are supporting the prisoners in suing the state for ?unconstitutionally crowded and dangerous? conditions.

In fact, despite reported pressure to keep quiet, ?Corrections Captain Lloyd Wallace, president of the 500-member Alabama Correctional Organization, gave a sworn statement saying [all of] Alabama's prisons ?are understaffed, overcrowded and are very dangerous,?" calling the situation a "ticking time bomb."  Alabama prisons are currently ?stretched to the limit,? with over 25,000 prisoners living in facilities designed to hold 13,403.

Full post as published by ThePopTort on May 07, 2009 (boomark / email).