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Dangerous conditions for state prisons and guards

Saturday, March 17, 2012

St. Clair County- Proration comes at a bad time for state leaders who say our prison system is broken. With more than 26,000 inmates and vastly out-numbered guards, lawmakers are struggling to find a solution.

"My biggest concern, a security standpoint: this is a security nightmare," Carter Davenport, Warden, St. Clair Correctional facility. Inside the walls of the St. Clair Correctional facility, the number of white suits vs. the number of officer uniforms is startling. "We're severely out numbered," Davenport said. That's just the beginning of the problems facing the facility. "Where you should have 5-6 officers helping you with the number of inmates, you have one officer watching anywhere from 150-200 inmates," Captain Lloyd Wallace, Al. Department of Corrections said. Just last Thursday, an inmate was stabbed by another inmate. Only one officer was nearby to handle it. "In a split second, the officer is doing his job, then has a knife coming at him," Davenport said.

The inmate population is so large an old dining hall is now used to hold prisoners. Contraband is a constant problem. Just last year, they confiscated 680 cell phones - and there's a growing problem of prescription medication and illegal drugs landing in the hands of convicts.

"If you are sending non violent offenders to prison and you are expending those resources, you are making matters worse for the public and that offender in the future," Kim Thomas, DOC Commissioner said.

All of this, runs $43 dollars - per inmate- per day. That's one of the lowest rates in the country yet it consumes a quarter of the state's general fund.

"These correctional officers are some of the most underpaid officers in the country," Senator Cam Ward, (R) said. "You could walk around in the yard today and you saw how outnumbered they were, how overworked they are, and how dangerous of a situation it is for them. it's the most under funded system in the U.S. Today."

Senator Ward is sponsoring legislation aimed at finding an alternative sentencing program for first time, non-violent offenders - it's an attempt to reduce the number of prisoners without raising the cost to tax payers. It passed the Senate Judiciary committee two weeks ago and Ward hopes the Senate will take it up in the next couple weeks.

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Keywords: St. CLair County, proration, prison system, inmates,

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