In a handwritten letter, Robin Alford begged for help.

Her son, Clinton Willard Bridges, died last year at one of Alabama’s maximum-security prisons. “When my son died so sudden, a part of me died with him. I will never be ok,” she wrote.

Bridges was locked up at St. Clair Correctional Facility for property crimes, his mother said. They talked regularly during his 14 years in prison, but in early September, the calls stopped coming in.

And they didn’t start again.

Eventually, Alford learned her son was in the infirmary. She checked in daily, and officials told her each time that Bridges was doing well.

But then, on Sept. 16, she was abruptly told that her son was dead.

“(A worker) said he (had) seen his body in the infirmary curled up on the floor with injuries to his head,” wrote Alford. “I could not believe what I was hearing.”

Alford’s plea for help was addressed to her local representatives and the members of Alabama’s Joint Prison Oversight Committee. She detailed the difficulty of trying to find out how her son died, why his body was covered in bruises and stab wounds.

The prison system still hasn’t given her any answers.

Her letter is one of several addressed to the committee and obtained by AL.com. All share stories of loved ones dying in Alabama’s prison system, and all come from families demanding help and change.

 “I don’t think it’s possible to say that anyone disputes that there’s a crisis,” said Charlotte Morrison, a senior attorney at the Equal Justice Initiative.

Alabama’s prison system has been in the federal crosshairs for years, and as the latest lawsuit from the Department of Justice moves towards trial next spring, many are wondering why not much has changed and why Alabama hasn’t adopted the easy fixes.

“I think that what the DOJ has done has gotten the attention of every leader in the state. We got the legislature’s attention,” said Morrison. That means there is some money available. “We now have the resources to be able to do something..Now what we need is the leadership to implement, to understand and implement the remedies.”

“It is possible, it is doable today to do that.”

What can be done?

The state prisons are overcrowded and understaffed, while some of the buildings are falling apart. Too many inmates are raped and killed, drugs are readily available, and life expectancy falls at the entrance. And the federal government, under multiple presidents, said all of this makes Alabama prisons unconstitutional in their cruelty.

So what can be done? What’s affordable and doable and possible right now?

The Department of Justice, in its 2019 and 2020 investigation documents, laid out possible solutions. Among those were:

• Stop blaming victims. Change how the prisons handle complaints about violence, drugs and threats to avoid subjecting victims to disciplinary actions
• Figure out why people are dying. Develop a centralized system to house autopsies of all who die in ADOC custody
• Install metal detectors
• Investigate and document every allegation of sexual abuse
• Fix broken locks
• Provide running water and ensure at least 80% of toilets, sinks, and shower heads work

That was just some of what the federal government recommended. But, according to the lawsuit filed at the end of 2020, the government said the state hadn’t taken their solutions seriously and that Alabama “has not made this easy fix” despite acknowledging the “decrepit conditions” for years.

In court records, the state disagreed that all of these represent problems or need fixing.

The state also denied many of the allegations. The state’s attorney wrote that Alabama “lacks knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief as to the truth” to some of the allegations, or “lacks knowledge or information sufficient to admit or deny” others.

New leadership

About a decade ago, after a separate federal investigation into Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women when too many women were getting pregnant in the lockup, the federal government opened another investigation into the system and offered yet more solutions.

That time, the state listened and made some easy fixes, like stopping guards from doing headcounts while the inmates were showering or adding doors to the bathroom stalls.

That started when EJI, the nonprofit based in Montgomery, investigated widespread claims of sexual abuse at Tutwiler, and in 2012 filed a complaint with the Justice Department. The next year, the federal government launched their own investigation. The feds found that “Tutwiler has a history of unabated staff-on-prisoner sexual abuse and harassment,” and spelled out changes the state could make to avoid a lawsuit.

In 2015, the state and the DOJ reached an agreement on reforms to be monitored by the judge. And late last year, both parties asked the court to end most of those provisions. Reports from court-appointed monitors show the prison has complied with almost all of the requirements at Tutwiler over the last six years.

Morrison at EJI didn’t talk about the specifics of the Tutwiler case. But she recalled how after the consent decree, the corrections department brought on a new deputy commissioner whose job was solely to focus on that one prison.

She’d like to see a similar change in leadership for the men’s prisons.

“We can bring on additional supervisors to be on the ground at the facilities to help staff understand, ‘How do you manage this crisis?‘… It does require bringing in independent supervision and leadership.”

And that’s what Alabama prison officials say is happening.

While the positions aren’t called deputy commissioners, like at Tutwiler, the department launched a nationwide search for administrators to oversee operations at the prisons. Each regional director will each manage three major facilities, and several have already been hired.

Currently, there are only two people handling that job for 21 facilities.

The department has also recently hired a Constituent Services Coordinator. That person will manage a team of liaisons stationed at each of the major prisons to work with families.

Both moves come after a bill passed last year creating the positions.

“The ADOC is committed to providing timely and accurate information to the public,” read a press release from the prison spokesperson announcing the new hires. “The goal is to be transparent and helpful to victims and their families, offender families, legislative offices, community partners, and others.”

 As for leadership, Alison Mollman, legal director of the ACLU of Alabama, said the state’s merit system of promoting wardens within the system means that people with varied skillsets and backgrounds don’t get a chance to change the system. She said prisons outside of Alabama have installed wardens with social work or mental health experience.

“One of the problems that Alabama historically has had over the years, leadership has had to rise through the ranks… but you really limit the backgrounds of people who can come in and lead these institutions,” she said.

What won’t solve it? Mega-prisons

New facilities alone won’t fix the state’s corrections problem, federal investigators said.

Yet construction is ongoing for a mega-prison for men in Elmore County that’s going to cost more than $1 billion. That new prison is slated to have just 4,000 beds, along with additional room for medical care, mental health care, and educational opportunities.

The new lockups won’t add beds to the state’s total number when they open — they’re set to simply replace beds in the dilapidated facilities that will shut their doors. There’s plans for a second mega-prison in Escambia County, but the state is still looking for a way to pay for it and construction hasn’t started.

The federal investigators said the expensive new buildings won’t solve Alabama’s issue, and the state might just wind up back in the same position it’s in now.

“While new facilities might cure some of these physical plant issues, it is important to note that new facilities alone will not resolve the contributing factors to the overall unconstitutional condition of ADOC prisons, such as understaffing, culture, management deficiencies, corruption, policies, training, non-existent investigations, violence, illicit drugs, and sexual abuse,” said the DOJ report. “And new facilities would quickly fall into a state of disrepair if prisoners are unsupervised and largely left to their own devices, as is currently the case.”

And Morrison, too, doesn’t think the new prisons are a cure.

“What we know is there’s a cancer in the system that hasn’t been treated, and then it’s going to be moved into this new system. I think it’s a real disservice to the officers to leave them without supervision, to give them these orders that (they) know (they) don’t have the staff to be able to implement.”

Get families involved

Morrison said Alabama needs to work to involve families.

“Families should be brought in the moment a loved one enters the prison so that they can understand what’s expected of their loved one, what opportunities they’ll have for rehabilitation and reform, what programming is available, how the best thing they can do for their loved one,” Morrison said.

Families often do not know which programs or classes are offered. A shared set of information about what’s offered, and what the processes are, means families could help their loved one find something productive to do with their time.

She mentioned other prisons across the country where lockups have family movie nights or worship sessions as incentives for good behavior, and said Alabama’s “hostile” reaction to family concerns is leading in the opposite direction of public safety.

“That’s the mindset that is going to cost Alabama taxpayers so much money if we keep doing that,” Morrison told AL.com. “That is how we got into the mess at Tutwiler. Either no one believed the women there or they thought they deserved it.”

She said involving families could reduce violence and disciplinary issues. “And I think that would go a long way to increasing adherence to rules, to reducing misconduct.”

“This treating families as if they’re part of the problem is really jeopardizing the mission of the Department of Corrections to ensure public safety by decreasing the chances of recidivism.”

Alford, the mother who wrote to lawmakers for help, asked for an investigation into St. Clair and help finding out why her son died. “They treated my son, and by extension myself, as worthless. I cannot accept this… please help me understand what happened to my son.”

More cameras

In its 2019 investigation, the federal government said the prisons needed to put up a camera system within six months. The prisons, the government said, should keep all videos for at least 90 days and the wardens should review them monthly.

The installation of video cameras at Tutwiler was one thing advocates say improved the situation there, too. After the federal investigation into sexual abuse, the former commissioner of the prison system and then-Gov. Robert Bentley advocated for millions of dollars to cover the cost of camera equipment and installation.

“I don’t understand why we don’t have live monitoring of video feeds at the prisons,” Morrison said. “If you don’t have staff to put in a unit, contract with a live monitor and watch it, make sure those cameras are always functioning.”

Prison officials said there are some cameras at the mens’ facilities, but they’re working to get more and to put each of the current ones they have onto a shared network for live viewing. And, they are working to get more employees to monitor a live feed.

The department has asked for over $1 million to spend on cameras.

Give prisoners training

Currently, the Alabama Department of Corrections offers career and technical programs from Ingram State Technical College at 10 facilities, or roughly half of the system.

Morrison said programming should be seen as a priority and not a privilege. Increasing the programming in a prison is one way to keep inmates occupied, and Morrison said it’s a “huge part of security in a prison.”

“An idle population is a corrections nightmare,” she added.

She said volunteer groups have traditionally welcomed opportunities to come into the facilities and teach, and family programming can be “low-cost and high-yield in terms of security outcomes.”

Current programs include automotive mechanics, cabinetmaking, carpentry, cosmetology, electrical technology, plumbing, utility tree trimming and more.

Mollman, legal director of the ACLU of Alabama, mentioned churches and groups who could come into the prisons at no cost to the department. Engagement like that has helped lockups across the country, she said, citing the infamous Angola prison in Louisiana and its improvements.

“When incarcerated people have more positive ways to spend their time, you see that filter down in terms of disciplinaries and overall culture at the facility,” said Mollman. “There’s a direct relationship to programming and other rehabilitative programs … and the violence in the facilities.”

Mollman also said the prison, like other facilities across the country, could teach a few, trusted inmates to then lead their own courses.

More guards needed

Staffing has been a major concern over the years.

In 2017, a federal judge said the mental health care for Alabama inmates was “horrendously inadequate” and said the shortage of mental health staff and correctional staff was an overarching factor. He ordered the state to hire an additional 2,000 correctional officers.

Data from the prisons show hiring is happening, and Morrison said staffing shortages do take time to resolve. But other states have used social workers and other criminal justice professionals as supervisors or wardens, and not just certified law enforcement officers.

In 2023, John Hamm, the prison commissioner, told lawmakers that 28% of its paid slots for security staff were vacant, and 18% of support staff slots were vacant.

“Any suggestions you might have, we’re all ears,” Hamm said. “I think one of our court orders says we will hire X number of security staff. I don’t know how we’re going to make them come to work.”

Drug treatment

The state effectively sends people with drug addictions to prison, Morrison said. While there are addiction programs in prison, she added, the number of spots in the classes “is minuscule compared to the problem.”

And when those people get out of prison, Morrison said, there is “virtually no re-entry support for people coming out having been raped, still having an ongoing addiction, dealing with this trauma… Men are coming out broken by abuse and violence, by addiction, with nothing.”

She said the department is putting the burden of re-entry on families.

“We’re putting it on poor families that have already spent thousands, every last penny they had, trying to keep their loved one alive in prison. And then they come home more injured, more broken than they ever have been.”

Mollman praised the Bureau of Pardons and Paroles’ PREP Center, which is a 90-day residential center that offers job training, substance abuse help, education programs and re-entry services to some men before they are released on parole. The prison system could do something similar on a larger-scale, she said. But instead of looking at positive levels for reform, Mollman said over the phone, the Alabama Department of Corrections “has chosen expensive litigation.”

A starting point

But, Morrison remains hopeful.

“I think we turned Tutwiler from the most notorious women’s prison in the U.S. to a model within just a very short time. And I think we could do that. We could start with one prison… I think we could do it system-wide, but why not even just start with one of the prisons?”

The families who have flooded Montgomery with letters and calls for help for their incarcerated loved ones are trying to hang on to hope, too.

One woman, who found out that her cousin was slain behind bars, wrote: “In this upcoming legislative session, please use the power you have to make Alabama prisons safer and ensure that family members of prisoners are treated like human beings, especially when they are in a crisis. We are counting on you.”

And another – a mother who believes her son was stabbed to death at a north Alabama prison – asked for help in confirming how her son died and holding the prison system accountable.

When asked how she reacts to the argument that people in prison are dangerous and beyond reform, as Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall wrote in 2021, Morrison scoffed.

“That, again, obscures the problem,” she said.

“What do you say about the kid who stole a 4-wheeler who’s being put in there?” she asked. The person with a dozen marijuana plants, or the man who forged checks, or the woman who had a pocket full of pills?

“It is that indifference to a single human life that then expands to the indifference to thousands… That’s the price. That is not a safe Alabama.”