Prison Overcrowding and the War on Drugs
This is a condensed version of a longer letter that I sent to Governor Siegelman, Lt. Gov. Steve Windom, my state senator and representative, and several other figures in state politics immediately after Judge Shashy’s ruling was announced. Alabama’s inhuman prison system and racist, violent police force are one of the single greatest barriers to the continuing progress of racial justice in this state. As they always have been; to paraphrase Malcolm X, the white supremacist have traded in the hoods and white sheets (well, *some* of them have traded in the hoods and white sheets!) for badges and blue uniforms and black robes. The letter was published in the Opelika-Auburn News on 24 May 2001.
Editors, Opelika-Auburn News:
This past Friday, Judge William Shashy ordered the state to move to state prisons the nearly 2,000 state prisoners who have been illegally jammed into county jails for more than 30 days. Intense overcrowding throughout the prison system has produced inhuman conditions for the prisoners, and huge headaches for county sheriffs and the Department of Corrections. Our state government has responded to the situation by proposing to spend more of our tax money on newer, bigger prisons and more corrections officers. But why should we keep throwing more people into an expanding prison system, when that’s what landed us in this crisis in the first place?
About one out of every six prisoners in the state of Alabama — over 4,000 inmates — is imprisoned for nonviolent drug offenses, crimes
which hurt nobody but themselves. They’re jammed into overcrowded cells for years, stripped of their civil rights to vote, and made to work like slaves in furniture plants, chemical plants, and right out on the fields through prison labor programs. Worse, two-thirds of the prison population is Black; the racist enforcement of the War on Drugs — a war on some people who use certain kinds of drugs — threatens to take Alabama back to the plantation and Jim Crow.
Prison population has been skyrocketing ever since the introduction of Alabama’s mandatory minimum sentencing laws, which require judges to put away nonviolent first-time drug offenders for anywhere between three and nineteen years, depending on the drug involved. If you want to solve Alabama’s prison population crisis, don’t throw away more of our tax dollars on new prisons. Instead, release Alabama’s 4,000 prisoners of the War on Drugs and repeal the insane drug laws that created this crisis.
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I realize this article was printed last year. But I have just now read it over the internet. I just want to say AMEN. I don’t know what some of our politicians (including the Governor and on down and even higher up to the President) are thinking. I know the person locked up is suppose to be rehabilitated while serving time for their crime. But it is actually as you say. I have seen it first hand because I have a family member in prison, from a property crime that caused him to be sentenced under the habitual offender act. The officials say the inmates are not sick (when they are) and are still treated unhumane. This will go on until we have a Governor or whomever has that authority to make changes. Personally speaking, I have been treated like ______, threatened to stop my visits etc., and my last visit my life was threatened. I was asked to come into the Assistant Warden’s office and seated in the chair in the corner while he was waiting on this Captain M____. This Captain leaned against the door until both of them were through interigating me, threatening me and the Captain moved away from the door and told me I could leave now. I was held against my will and was justifiable for filing charges against both of them, but I didn’t. I feel I am a better person than that, than they are. These two officers are the example of those that traded their shield for a blue uniform and badge. I don’t mind if you print this in your newspaper because something needs to be done. If you do, please let me know through my email and I will have you to mail me one.
PS I couldn’t have put the words together than the author of this article. God Bless Him and you that published it.