State lawmakers will consider a bill to authorize the Alabama Department of Corrections to create a new team of employees who will be responsible for providing information to the family members of incarcerated men and women.

Sen. Clyde Chambliss, R-Prattville, who is chairman of the Legislature’s Joint Prison Oversight Committee, is sponsoring the bill.

In December, relatives and friends of inmates told the oversight committee stories about relatives and friends assaulted, raped, and killed in Alabama prisons, and about difficulty of getting information from prisons about what happened and their loved one’s condition.

Some said they learned from other inmates that their relative was injured or hospitalized and had to make repeated calls to the prison to get any answers.

Chambliss said the bill comes in response to what the committee heard.

“We’ve been talking about it individually and back and forth and just felt like we need to do something to help with the communication and help folks get information about their loved ones that are incarcerated,” Chambliss said.

Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Hamm told the oversight committee at its last meeting two weeks ago about plans to create a family services unit to address the communications problems.

Hamm said one employee would be assigned to each of the ADOC’s 14 major prisons.

“We will be able to have that one individual at the facility dedicated to run those answers down for the family and respond back to them in a timely manner,” Hamm said.

One family services employee would work at the ADOC central office and oversee the family services program.

Hamm told the oversight committee at the April 2 meeting that it would be important to have legislation authorizing those positions in order to keep the policy in place under future commissioners.

“Let’s put it in law,” Hamm said. “My time is limited so when I leave, whoever the next commissioner is, that will still be there that they have to follow through on.”

Hamm said prisons now have a person who is responsible for communicating with family members but said the system is “fractured” and that those employees are often busy with other tasks.

Under SB322, the ADOC commissioner will pick the family services employees, who will not be part of the state merit system and will work for the commissioner, not the warden in the prison where they are assigned.

“The point there is to have somebody that’s directly reportable to him, directly accountable to him,” Chambliss said. “So that we can make sure that we eliminate any holdups in communicating.”

The bill by Chambliss, SB322, says the ADOC commissioner may appoint up to 15 employees for constituent services, including one who will oversee those services and will serve as a liaison to the prison oversight committee. The ADOC has 14 prisons, plus a dozen smaller work centers.

As for funding the 15 new positions, Chambliss said he believes the ADOC budget can absorb the new hires, at least for now, because it has funding for correctional officer positions and other jobs that are not filled. The ADOC is working to address a severe staffing shortage.

SB322 also says the oversight committee will study and address the ADOC’s family services efforts.

Hamm said at the April 2 meeting that the ADOC will work on a media campaign and through social media to to tell the public about the new information efforts.

The need for better communication channels for family members is especially important because of the level of violence and other problems in Alabama’s prisons, which have been overcrowded and understaffed for years.

The U.S. Department of Justice sued Alabama in December 2020, alleging the failure to protect prisoners from inmate-on-inmate violence and sexual abuse, failure to protect them from excessive force by staff, and failure to provide safe conditions of confinement violate constitutional prohibitions on cruel and unusual punishment. The state has acknowledged problems in the prison system but has denied that conditions violate the constitution. The case is heading toward a trial, possibly later this year.

Chambliss said the Joint Prison Oversight’s next meeting will be a public hearing on July 24 at 10:30 a.m. at the State House. People interested in speaking at the public hearing should contact the senator’s office at (334) 261-0872.

The Senate County and Municipal Government Committee is scheduled to consider SB322 at 1 p.m. Tuesday.