By Eddie Burkhalter, Appleseed Researcher

James Jones was hurting long before YesCare, the company contracted to provide medical care for those in Alabama prisons, diagnosed him with prostate cancer. 

After Appleseed succeeded in getting Mr. Jones, now 78, released from prison in December 2024 and his treatments began outside of prison fences, his life and health took a turn for the better. He recently moved into his very own apartment, in a HUD-subsidized senior housing complex, and now Medicare covers his healthcare expenses.

But there are hundreds of people like him, older and sick and of no danger to the public, who remain imprisoned and unable to access quality healthcare. And their numbers increase every year. Their continued incarceration, at a time when privately-contracted prison healthcare is a struggling industry, creates a costly and uncertain situation, especially for poor states like Alabama.

What our team has found, over more than five years of working with formerly incarcerated older people, is that there are available resources in Alabama communities, especially Jefferson County, to care for many these individuals – people who pose no risk to the public, yet who are costing the state millions while receiving substandard care in prison. At Appleseed, we are creating a cost-effective and compassionate model for relieving some of the pressure on the overwhelmed prison system and its expensive medical provider. 

Given the fragile state of correctional health care and the continued danger and crowding in Alabama prisons, we believe it’s past time to scale this model. Below we offer lessons from our work and solutions to a brewing crisis that impacts more than 21,000 people in Alabama prisons.

Bankruptcy, missed payments, and missed pay checks

From the beginning of YesCare’s relationship with the State of Alabama, there were concerns about costs and viability. YesCare’s more than $1 billion contract with the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) was approved in 2023. The company was born from the demise of Texas-based Corizon Health Inc., which had provided the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) with health care services from 2012 to 2017. Numerous Alabama advocacy groups and incarcerated people sued Corizon over allegations of medical neglect, and facing a slew of lawsuits nationwide alleging the company failed to pay hospitals and insurance providers, Corizon transferred massive amounts of debt to a newly formed Tehum Care Services, which then declared bankruptcy. Critics said the move left Corizon’s creditors with no recourse. Corizon executives then created YesCare and landed the massive ADOC  contract. 

“Tehum, the bankrupt new company created in the maneuver, owes more than $82 million to over 1,000 creditors, including former patients who were injured or neglected, former employees who were hurt on the job, hospitals, doctors’ offices, cities and states,” The Marshall Project reported in 2023. “Almost all of Corizon’s assets — worth more than $170 million, according to court papers — went to YesCare, which continues to provide healthcare at prisons and jails.”

Then last month, YesCare missed a $2 million settlement payment required under the bankruptcy settlement. As reported March 5 in the Wall Street Journal, “Prison healthcare contractor YesCare didn’t make required payments under a $75 million settlement to resolve the bankruptcy of its former affiliate Tehum Care Services, opening the door again to medical-injury and creditor lawsuits.” Appleseed’s questions to ADOC regarding the YesCare contract and issues with the company’s solvency went unanswered.

YesCare failed to pay its Alabama prison workers on the scheduled payday Friday, April 10, according to statements from several  of those workers to Appleseed on Monday, April 13. Appleseed also heard from advocates who monitor Alabama’s prisons that YesCare staff went unpaid Friday and many healthcare workers for the company walked off the job at Kilby Correctional Facility on Monday morning.  

“If you are receiving this email, it is because we are aware that some payroll transactions have still not been fully processed as of this afternoon,” reads an email from YesCare Chief Human Resources Officer Dennis Wade to staff on Friday, which a health care worker for the company sent to Appleseed. “We are working with our ownership and our bank to address the situation and hope to have it resolved on Monday. We know this is a hardship and apologize for the inconvenience.” 

We learned Tuesday, April 14, that YesCare staff were finally paid, though several days late. 

Workers have communicated their frustration in multiple ways. “We most definitely didn’t receive pay on Friday and it’s almost the close of business and I do not see any pending transactions,” one YesCare worker told Appleseed. “YesCare has failed to pay in a timely manner for the last 2 pay periods…but it has never been this late.” 

Against this backdrop, the expensive medical needs of incarcerated Alabamians are only increasing with the state keeping so many older people locked up long after they age out of criminality.  

The Senseless Costs of an Aging Prison Population 

The percentage of incarcerated people who are older has continued to increase in Alabama prisons for decades. As of January 2026 the percentage of people under ADOC’s jurisdiction (This includes those imprisoned and those serving sentences in community corrections settings. ADOC public reporting doesn’t break down the numbers to show just those who are serving in prison.) who were 51 years old or older sat at 28.5 percent, or 8,086 people. That’s higher than the national average of 24 percent aged 51 or older, according to research published in the National Library of Medicine. In 2000, those older people made up just 7 percent of Alabama’s prison population. 

As Alabama prisons continue to house a higher percentage of older people, the rising cost of providing physical and mental health places a greater and greater burden on the state’s General Fund. Studies show that the cost of caring for those older incarcerated people is between three and five times the cost of keeping younger people incarcerated. 

In 2000, Alabama spent an average of $24.47 to incarcerate someone for a day, or about $9,300 per year. That number stayed relatively the same between 1995 and 2003, but the dramatic rise of

older individuals in prison sent costs soaring. According to ADOC Commissioner John Hamm, speaking in a 2024 budget hearing, he predicted the daily cost for fiscal year 2024 to hit $87 a day, a 255 percent increase from 2000. (ADOC’s annual reports used to include data on the cost of incarcerating people, but the department stopped publishing that data for the 2022 annual report.) But we know it continues to escalate as the FY27 General Fund budget allocation for ADOC was $868 million.

An aging prison population requires longer, more attentive care. As such, ADOC’s healthcare system will continue to be strained, requiring excessive reliance on off-site infirmary admissions. Along with the aging population, which brings its own increased medical costs, there are others who have serious health conditions or terminal illnesses. Medical costs to address the health care needs for people incarcerated continue to increase, going from $120 million in 2012 to $235 million in 2023.

It becomes even harder to justify spending hundreds of millions to care for aging men and women in prisons when one recognizes the long-settled fact that as people age they commit less crime. Hundreds of incarcerated Alabamians eke out an existence behind bars barely able to walk, much less to commit crimes.  

Those aged 60 and older account for only three to four percent of violent crime nationally, and older people return to prison at lower rates as well. 

“Older offenders were substantially less likely than younger offenders to recidivate following release. Over an eight-year follow-up period, 13.4 percent of offenders age 65 or older at the time of release were rearrested compared to 67.6 percent of offenders younger than age 21 at the time of release,” according to a U.S. Sentencing Commission report. “The pattern was consistent across age groupings, and recidivism measured by rearrest, reconviction, and reincarceration declined as age increased.”

In short, people over 60 were about five times less likely to be rearrested than people under 21. 

Our roadmap for care after long-term incarceration and delayed diagnoses

James Jones was 77 when Appleseed won his freedom from a life without parole sentence, and on December 18, 2024, he walked out of the St. Clair Correctional Facility. Even prison staff celebrated his release as the jovial gentleman known as “Honkytonk” ambled out of the long-troubled prison. Appleseed’s reentry team was already well underway on the plan to help him get the medical care he badly needed. 

One of the first people in the state to be sentenced to a mandatory sentence of life without parole under the Habitual Felony Offender Act in 1981, Mr. Jones spent 43 years in prison following a robbery at a North Birmingham shoe store.

Mr. Jones was diagnosed with prostate cancer shortly before his release from prison, but because he wasn’t receiving care earlier on for the pain he was experiencing, his diagnosis was likely late in coming, explained Kathleen Henderson, Appleseed’s re-entry case manager. “If they had given him symptom care they could have picked up on it,” Ms. Henderson said, noting that since his release and because of his cancer treatments, he’s improving. “Now Mr. Jones is living comfortably. He’s doing pretty well.” 

Our client John Coleman, who Appleseed freed from prison in 2023 after he served 34 years of a life sentence, was wheelchair-bound while in prison, but after his release, once Appleseed helped him access physical therapy and medical treatments for the pain in his back and legs, he began walking with a walker. 

“He was able to get along fine (with the proper treatment) but while he was in, he had none of that, ” Ms. Henderson said, noting that even among the Appleseed clients who were being treated for medical conditions while incarcerated, the medication they were provided was “one size fits all” and not tailored to their individual needs. There is no rehabilitation care in Alabama prisons either, she said. 

Another freed Appleseed client had HIV while incarcerated but records don’t show he was ever treated while in prison. He’s receiving that treatment now, and it was only recently discovered that he also has stomach cancer. “How long had that been going on, for it to get to this point?” Ms. Henderson said of the cancer diagnosis. “Their problems are not met in prison like they should be,” Ms. Henderson said. 

Ingrid Patrick, Appleseed’s social worker who, along with Ms. Henderson, ensures Appleseed’s re-entry clients thrive outside of prison, said she begins the process with new clients by securing housing, either at a transition home like Birmingham’s Shepherd’s Fold or with the client’s family, and then begins the work of getting them medical care and all the documents they need to restart their lives.

Our team has learned that this process can take months, and many clients need extra resources to survive as they wait out the federal bureaucratic delays. “You would be surprised at how many of our guys didn’t have a social security card or birth certificate,” Mrs. Patrick said. But once the necessary documents are secured and federal services start flowing, people can thrive. 

Appleseed’s team stresses the importance of blood work and diabetes testing once people are released, because too often clients had no idea they were diabetic while incarcerated. “We had one instance where he knew he was diabetic, but the line (in prison) for getting his medication was just so long, and he has extreme back pain so he can’t stand in that long line, and so he just stopped getting his medication,” Ms. Patrick said. “We got him released and in to see his doctor, and he is doing so much better.” 

“A lot of times they aren’t getting the proper care, or the full care, they should be receiving,” Ms. Patrick said. “A lot of the healthcare they get out here has prolonged their lifespan for sure.” 

Currently, 16 Appleseed reentry clients are over age 65. Thirteen of these individuals have chronic health problems, such as prostate cancer, kidney disease, high blood pressure or pain related to aging and require assistance from our team for doctors appointments, prescription access and more. 

Appleseed’s capable reentry team – a total of three people – have connected dozens of clients to community resources. The key is a case manager, social worker, and peer mentor, Ronald McKeithen, who served 37 years himself, and is now 64 years old, so he understands what these individuals need on many levels. What our clients need most is help with things like getting new identification cards and navigating Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits: tasks that anyone trained in case management can easily help with. “There are people coming out who have health problems who are older, who could live on their own. It absolutely can be done. There are so so so many folks out there that work with health care,” Ms. Henderson said. “There are so many health resources out here.” 

On a recent visit to the Birmingham Botanical Gardens for the garden’s cherry blossom festival, three of Appleseed’s clients and Ms. Patrick spent time together. Robert Cheeks, now 83, was pushed in his wheelchair and talked about his memories, but the memories he shared weren’t of life in the free world. He’d served 37 years of a life without the possibility of parole sentence before Appleseed freed him in 2022. 

“He’d been in prison for 30-plus years. Those are the memories he has,” Ms. Patrick  said. “So why should he not be allowed to come out and make new memories for himself?”

There are laws to help fix this, but obstacles remain

States around the country are grappling with this issue. Various tools and laws are available, often known as compassionate release. Alabama has both a medical furlough and a medical parole law in its state statutes. 

The medical furlough statute provides eligibility to incarcerated individuals age 55 or older “who suffer[s] from a chronic life-threatening infirmity, life-threatening illness, or chronic debilitating disease related to aging, who poses a low risk to the community, and who does not constitute a danger to himself or herself or society.” People who are permanently incapacitated or terminally ill are also eligible. Terminally ill is described as having “an incurable condition caused by illness or disease which would, with reasonable medical judgment, produce death within 12 months.”

Alabama prison death data strongly suggest that the furlough statute is being underutilized. Currently, 16 people are in the medical furlough program, which is a little higher than the typical 13 to 15, posted in ADOC statistical reports over the last three years. But Alabama has one of the highest prison mortality rates in the United States, thus the vast majority of people with terminal illnesses or chronic life-threatening infirmities are dying in prison, rather than be released by furlough. A more robust furlough program or additional compassionate release mechanisms would allow more people to die with dignity, surrounded by family rather than in a cold prison infirmary. Plus, it would relieve some of the pressure on prison healthcare providers and reduce costs for the state.

Of the record high 327 deaths inside Alabama prisons in 2023,  ADOC classified the cause of death as natural for 153 people, which accounts for 46.7 percent of them. Appleseed is working to learn more about in custody deaths from 2014-2024, and 2023 is the first year for which we have a complete picture of causes and manner of deaths. 

Already our findings strongly suggest that people are dying of treatable conditions, calling into question the quality of prison health care. One in six “natural” deaths in Alabama prisons in 2023 occurred among incarcerated people aged 50 or younger. In more than one-fifth of those deaths (22 percent), sepsis, a life-threatening but often treatable condition, was listed as a cause or contributing factor. By comparison, sepsis was involved in only about one in 25 natural deaths across all ages that year. 

The average age for natural deaths inside Alabama prisons that year was 59, and in facilities like Ventress and Bibb, the average age of natural death drops into the 40s, ADOC’s own reporting to the federal government collected and reviewed by Appleseed shows. 

Among those younger natural deaths at Ventress prison was Ryan S. Allen, who died at the prison on April 3, 2023 at the age of 27 and whose cause of death listed in ADOC’s data submitted to the federal government states “Cause of death: staphylococcus aureus sepsis.”  Staph infections are treatable, and sepsis can mean delayed or failed intervention. 

James Lynn Johnson, 36, died at Elmore Correctional Facility on July 11, 2023, from “complications of diabetes”, a disease that required constant monitoring and care, and 30-year-old Chad Markum died from “Sepsis due to…pneumonia” on April 1, 2023, at Ventress Correctional Facility. 

Smoothing the transition with federal resources

A major obstacle to relieving some of this pressure by moving older and infirm people into the community for care is the inability to start or restart a person’s Medicare or Medicaid benefits until after they are released from prison. ADOC and YesCare are keenly aware of this issue.

In August of 2024, Ms. Henderson at Appleseed was contacted by a YesCare worker regarding a case involving a man named Jamaal Mabry. Mr. Mabry was stabbed in the back while serving his sentence, leaving him quadriplegic with only minimal use of his left arm. By the time the YesCare worker contacted Ms. Henderson she had applied 3 times for Medicaid on behalf of Mr. Mabry and was denied each time due to his incarcerated status. However, because he lacked Medicaid coverage, which he would be eligible for due to his disability, the YesCare worker was unable to place him in a nursing home or care facility. For months, Appleseed attempted to find a placement and figure out a way around these obstacles.

Eventually, Appleseed attorney Scott Fuqua was able to secure Mr. Mabry a placement at a nursing home only after taking extraordinary measures to ensure the cost of caring for his first month’s stay would be paid for. Mr. Mabry was released from prison on April 4, 2026. 

“They wouldn’t take him without assurance that that was going to be paid for, one way or the other,” Ms. Henderson said. Because she filed for his benefits as soon as he was released, once the application is processed those benefits will start retroactively and cover costs incurred from the day the application was sent, but providing that payment guarantee to places like nursing homes is a massive obstacle to helping incarcerated people reenter their communities. 

“Just trying to get someone into a nursing home is hard enough, but trying to get them in while they’re incarcerated is almost impossible,” Ms. Henderson said. 

Despite this difficult reality, there exists a solution that other states are using. Section 1115 Medicaid demonstration waivers can be used in many different ways, including for those who are incarcerated specifically by establishing or reestablishing Medicaid coverage prior to someone’s release from incarceration in order to streamline the reentry process.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has begun emphasizing the use of the 1115 waiver in reentry, stating, “Section 5032(b) of the SUPPORT Act makes clear that the purpose of this demonstration opportunity is ‘to improve care transitions for certain individuals who are soon-to-be former inmates of a public institution and who are otherwise eligible to receive medical assistance under title XIX.’” 

To date, 20 states have been approved to use the 1115 waiver for reentry and five other states have applied. Of the 5 southern states that have applied– Arkansas, Louisiana, West Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky– Kentucky, West Virginia, and North Carolina approved so far. The program allows incarcerated people to enroll in Medicaid 90 days before their release. In addition to Medicaid enrollment and reinstatement, the waiver can provide increased access to case management prior to release, as it does in Kentucky, for example. This broadens its usefulness, as use of the waiver can serve even those aging who aren’t headed to a nursing home post release, who simply need better access to resources and care prior to release so they can be more on their way to getting jobs and moving forward. In order to make this happen, Alabama’s State Medicaid Director would need to write and submit a proposal for an 1115 waiver program, outlining what its goals would be. If approved, State Medicaid and the Department of Corrections would need to work closely to ensure the program is being utilized in an effective and efficient way. Other state entities that might benefit from the program include the Department of Mental Health, the Nursing Home Association, Senior Services, and the Department of Rehabilitation Services.

On the other end of the spectrum, several of Appleseed’s older clients are employed well into their 60s and after decades in prison. Milton Hambright, 63, landed a job as a forklift operator at a Cullman manufacturing company less than two weeks after being released on parole. He has a side job as the handyman at the Cullman Reentry Addiction Assistance, his transitional housing placement. 

Larry Garrett, 71, is employed by Western Express driving tractor trailers and is constantly on the road. Both of these men spent more than three decades behind bars, yet somehow maintained their health and are determined to contribute to the economy and be self-sufficient, despite the state taking so many years of their lives. 

Their resilience and vigor prove what’s possible when sensible resentencing is combined with holistic reentry support. 

Policy Director Elaine Burdeshaw and Executive Director Carla Crowder contributed to this report.

A resource for Alabamians to learn about the human rights crisis in Alabama state prisons, share their knowledge with others, and work for change

Since 2019, when the United States Department of Justice issued a 56-page report calling out unconstitutional violence, death, and corruption across the entire Alabama prison system for men, Alabama Appleseed has been dedicated to guiding communities across Alabama to a better understanding of the human rights crisis in our prisons. We do this by lifting up stories of individuals and families most harmed by this broken system, by researching and documenting evidence-based solutions and alternatives to needless incarceration, and by providing legal services that free older, rehabilitated Alabamians who then share their personal stories of hope and redemption. 

Appleseed shares our work widely across the state, connecting with faith groups, civic organizations, students, elected officials and everyday Alabamians who learn about this crisis and want to get involved. We have developed resources for advocates geared toward educating everyday Alabamians and empowering them to create change. 

In the six years since we embarked on these efforts there has been some progress. And for that we are grateful. But given the depth of the dysfunction within state prisons, the need for major systemic reform remains. As laid out below, elected officials vowed to address these brutal conditions back in 2019. Money has poured into the prison system, yet institutional corruption and senseless violence remain rampant. The documentary, The Alabama Solution, painfully exposes these wrenching conditions to a broader audience, demanding a bold response from our state.

Below is a list of research and resources for advocates across Alabama who wish to learn more about this pressing issue, get up to speed on the responses of our elected officials, and use that knowledge to get involved in crucial reform efforts, including holding these leaders accountable.

The Problem: “The combination of ADOC’s overcrowding and understaffing results in prisons that are inadequately supervised, with inappropriate and unsafe housing designations, creating an environment rife with violence, extortion, drugs, and weapons.” United States Department of Justice

The U.S. Department of Justice’s report in 2019 detailed how Alabama’s prisons for men were violating constitutional rights of the incarcerated by failing to protect them from prisoner-on-prisoner violence and sexual abuse. The DOJ’s subsequent follow-up report in 2020 noted systemic problems of unreported or underreported excessive use of force incidents, a failure to properly investigate these abuses and attempts by correctional officers and their supervisors to cover up these violations. 

Appleseed’s summary of the DOJ report highlights the inability of the Alabama Department of Corrections to protect incarcerated men from sexual and physical violence and the DOJ’s finding that Alabama prisons had a homicide rate eight times the national average at the time. Appleseed’s summary also makes clear that the DOJ’s report states new prisons alone won’t solve the crisis. 

The beating death of Steven Davis in October 2019 at Donaldson prison underscored the ADOC’s inability to control excessive force by correctional officers, even after being on notice of the federal investigation.

The DOJ filed the federal government’s lawsuit against the State of Alabama and the Alabama Department of Corrections in December 2020 and filed an amended complaint in May 2021. 

Irrefutable documentation of pervasive violence, illegal drugs, and deaths in Alabama’s largest law enforcement agency

This crisis has resulted in a shameful and embarrassing national spotlight on the state. The New York Times called Alabama’s prisons “gruesome.”   In a Fox News report, then-Sen Cam Ward called the findings, “deeply humiliating,” and “disgusting.” Politico called the situation a “humanitarian crisis,” in an article quoting Adam Gelb, president and CEO of the Council on Criminal Justice: “It’s a state that has chased itself around in circles for the past two decades, and there have been some modest improvements, but the system remains terribly overcrowded and filled with people who in many cases should never have come through the front doors.”

Locally, the Montgomery Advertiser’s reporting includes the story of the beating death of Steven Davis at the hands of correctional officers at Donaldson Correctional Facility. Seven months after the DOJ’s 2019 report the newspaper’s reporting found that “prison officials have withheld food from men, micromanaging minor disciplinary infractions while violence and unexpected deaths continue unabated, including nine which occurred during the reporting of this story in September and October.” The 2019 Advertiser article “American horror story’: The prison voices you don’t hear from have the most to tell us” detailed conversations with incarcerated people who tell of chaos, violence and corruption. 

Unfortunately, the situation got worse. Prison Legal News reported more than one death a week in 2022, and bizarre situations such as the videotaped beating of prisoner Jimmy Norman on the rooftop of the Elmore Chapel by a guard. 

In-depth reporting by WBHM’s Deliberate Indifference podcast details how Alabama’s prisons became the deadliest in the country, looks closely at understaffing and overcrowding and through the voices of the incarcerated, correctional officers and others, sheds more light on a crisis that was decades in the making. 

Appleseed in 2023 began publishing the “Cruel and Unusual” series of reports that focused on the people harmed by Alabama’s overreliance on excessive sentences, which trap people in deadly, dysfunctional prisons long after they have paid their debt, including Ronnie Peoples, a cancer patient who at the time had served more than two decades of a life without the possibility of parole sentence for crimes in which no one was physically harmed. Appleseed’s subsequent research followed Mr. Peoples as he fought to get adequate cancer treatment while still incarcerated. 

Appleseed also spoke to the family of Christopher Mount, who was killed on Mother’s Day 2023 inside a segregation cell with another man in Easterling Correctional Facility. Mr. Mount’s daughter, then-17-year-old MaKayla Mount, in December 2023 told the story of her father’s death and impact on her life to members of the Legislative Joint Prison Oversight Committee. She carried the urn with his ashes into the Statehouse.

Also in the “Cruel and Unusual” series is the plight of Leon Hotchkiss, who is serving a 40-year sentence for growing marijuana. Mr. Hotchkiss, 70, with myriad health problems, has been assigned to the minimum-security Loxley Work Release Center for years and has held multiple jobs in the community. Even so, he was denied parole in February 2023. 

Appleseed in April 2023 noted the fourth anniversary of the DOJ’s 2019 report on Alabama’s prisons, which found that between the report’s release and the anniversary date, 698 people died in state prisons. Appleseed’s research also noted that the month that DOJ’s report was published in 2019, Alabama prisons were at 168 percent capacity, and at the time of Appleseed’s publication, prisons remained at 168 percent capacity. 

Alabama Daily News reporting on the December 2023 public hearing of the Legislative Joint Prison Oversight Committee includes comments from impacted family members who told of deaths, assaults, torture, extortion of those family members and of the indifference of prison staff.  In AL.com’s subsequent reporting on the Committee’s July 2024 meeting the mother of Derrick Martin, killed by another incarcerated man in Elmore Correctional Facility, told members that her son discussed with her the stabbing and beatings he suffered during six years behind bars.

In 2024, Alabama prisons remained unconstitutionally dangerous places, Appleseed found, where more than 1,000 people had died inside Alabama prisons since the DOJ’s 2019 report release. The national spotlight again glared on the state with the kidnapping and torture death of 21-year-old Daniel Williams at Staton prison, days before his scheduled release. An Appleseed investigation found that the suspect in Mr. Williams’ death was involved in nine instances of sex assault, rape, and stabbing since 2017 while incarcerated in ADOC, yet he was never placed in segregation to prevent additional victimization. No criminal charges were ever filed. Numerous deaths are also the result of dangerous drugs brought in by prison staff.

Violence by ADOC officers has remained pervasive. The Alabama Reflector in May 2025 published the first of the four-part series “Blood Money” that details 124 lawsuits that ADOC settled between 2020 and 2024, 94 of which involved complaints of excessive force by officers. The cost of defending those lawsuits pushed ADOC’s legal spending over $57 million since 2020. 

The State of Alabama’s Responses

Gov. Kay Ivey in 2019 announced the formation of the Governor’s Study Group on Criminal Justice Policy that was to “receive and analyze accurate data, as well as evidence of best practices, ultimately helping to further address the challenges facing Alabama’s prison system.” While the study group’s recommendations, released in January 2020, did include suggestions on spending and ways to reduce recidivism, the group declined to take up more substantive sentencing reform measures. Former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Champ Lyons, who chaired the Study Group, issued this warning five years ago: “The time for action is now. We dare not abide by a status quo that risks the potential for costly and disruptive intervention by federal authorities.”

Ivey in May 2021 signed several criminal justice reform bills into law, but only one bill would have a minimal impact on prison populations by reducing prison sentences by up to one year for incarcerated people who complete academic and vocational programs. Instead of making a serious effort to reduce the prison population, the Governor’s Office forged ahead with a massive, costly prison construction plan, insisting “this Alabama problem has an Alabama solution.” 

Alabama’s new 4,000-bed prison is under construction in Elmore County. While the project was initially projected to cost $623 million, the cost ballooned to $1.28 billion. Lawmakers told Alabama Daily News that the state has secured 60% of the cost of a second 4,000-bed prison, to be built in Escambia County. Neither of the new prisons is expected to ease overcrowding, however, as the legislation authorizing prison construction requires the closing of several existing prisons, and acknowledges the intent of the law is to “replace existing prison facility capacity.” 

The state is spending billions on incarceration, yet the money hasn’t made a dent in the violence and death inside prisons. An Appleseed analysis found that state prison expenses over a five fiscal-year period, from 2022-2026, will reach $5 billion. That monumental figure includes the annual General Fund allocations to the Alabama Department of Corrections, plus the costs of new prison construction including debt service, but does not include the at least $57 million paid out of the state’s General Liability Trust Fund in recent years on ADOC legal expenses, primarily private contract attorneys to defend officers accused of misconduct and to defend the ADOC in federal class action litigation over unconstitutional prison conditions.

The Alabama Joint Prison Oversight Committee was formed by legislation in 2021 and in meetings held since, those members have heard from directly impacted families members and from ADOC officials. One product of those discussions was the formation of ADOC’s Constituent Services unit, tasked with answering family members’ questions and concerns about the health and safety of incarcerated loved ones. Oversight Committee Chair Sen. Clyde Chambliss, R-Prattville, sponsored legislation that allowed ADOC to hire an additional 15 people to staff that unit. 

In an effort to increase hiring and bolster retention efforts, Alabama in 2023 increased correctional officer pay, so that officer trainees can earn between $52,000 and $58,000, with a 27% pay hike after 18 months. One year later, ADOC officials told lawmakers that the department wouldn’t meet a judge’s order to hire an additional 2,000 officers by mid-2025. In 2024, ADOC announced a partnership with the Alabama Community College System that would see the system offer a free career prep program for people interested in working for ADOC. Enrollees in the program can earn up to nine tuition-free college credit hours. 

Overall, even with the knowledge that the prisons are deadly and unconstitutional, Alabama lawmakers have passed bills that lengthen sentences, reduce parole and good time, and increase the prison population. The Alabama Sentencing Commission released research in September, 2025 showing that prisons “could see inmate populations rise by nearly a third by 2030 due to new punitive laws passed by the Legislature. The Commission, working with Applied Research Services, a research firm that studies criminal justice, estimated the population in custody of the Alabama Department of Corrections could grow from 21,753 to between 24,000 and 28,000 inmates, depending on the number of people that the ADOC admits each month on average.”

Appleseed’s efforts: Justice for people, justice for Alabama

Since 2019, Appleseed has been working with stakeholders across Alabama to raise awareness about this crisis, develop evidence-based solutions, and garner bi-partisan support for meaningful reform. We’ve given dozens of presentations, testified before the Legislature, produced reports and policy briefs, and our team member Ronald McKeithen holds a seat on the Statewide Reentry Commission tasked with reducing recidivism. We will never stop beating the drum that to move beyond this crisis the state must develop alternatives to incarceration so that fewer people will ever enter the prison system, while also identifying (and freeing) older people who have paid their debt, aged out of criminality and whose permanent incarceration wastes resources.

That’s why Appleseed is also committed to direct legal representation and reentry services, focusing on older prisoners serving extreme sentences, who will likely die in prison without legal assistance. Our post-conviction and parole work has freed more than 30 people who have served more than 800 years combined in these prisons, people such as James Jones, 78, who served 43 years before we won his freedom. 

Among our policy victories:

Grace Period Bill

In 2022, Appleseed advocated for the Grace Period Bill, which passed in its first session. The Grace Period Bill made it so individuals leaving incarceration have about 6 months before they have to begin paying back any of their legal financial obligations. This allows them time to obtain employment and begin getting back on their feet before they’re required to pay money they don’t often have on hand. 

Constituent Services Unit Bill

In 2024, Appleseed helped move SB322, a bill that, among other things, created the Constituent Services Unit at the Alabama Department of Corrections. This unit is tasked with responding to the concerns of family members, loved ones, and anyone else who has concern for an incarcerated person. The bill mandated an online form be publicly available on ADOC’s website, which is now up and running, and that there be a phone number associated with the unit. This bill was passed in large part due to the advocacy of families of incarcerated Alabamians. 

Second Chance efforts and successful legal work

In 2019, a judge reached out to Appleseed about a case where a man had been sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for crimes with no physical injury to a person. He had served over three decades for a $50 robbery at a Bessemer bakery. Appleseed represented this man, Alvin Kennard, and he was resentenced to time served and released. Since then Appleseed has discovered there are hundreds of older incarcerated people serving life without parole sentences under the state’s Habitual Felony Offender Act for crimes with no physical injury to a person. 

In the years since 2019 Appleseed has won the release of 23 people originally sentenced to die in prison, and nearly a dozen more freed through parole. Most are over the age of 60 and all of them served multiple decades in prison. Many of their stories are documented on Appleseed’s Second Chance Alabama website. Men once condemned to die for crimes with no physical injury– often when they were young or dealing with substance use disorders– are now living lives free with their families and friends, working as buffers for Town and Country Ford or drivers for Western Express Trucking, volunteering with church ministries, playing in dominoes tournaments and walking their dogs. We’ve developed a comprehensive reentry program staffed by reentry professionals to ensure they succeed. 

While providing the direct legal representation required to continue obtaining freedom for these individuals who remain incarcerated, Appleseed has also worked at the legislative level to create a state-level change that would allow these individuals and their cases to be reviewed systematically by judges across the state. While the Second Chance Bill has yet to pass, the bill made it to the final step in the legislative process two out of three years, and has garnered broad, bipartisan support from former state Supreme Court justices, prison ministries, a former U.S. Congressman, and Gov. Kay Ivey herself. 

Real Solutions are within reach, but we must move past slogans and political posturing

Appleseed’s 2020 “In Trouble” report surveyed 1,011 justice- involved Alabamians about their experiences in pre-trial diversion programming and drug court. We found that Alabama’s tangle of overlapping, unaccountable, and expensive diversion programs are not equally available to people who most need them. And structural obstacles force participants to make unconscionable choices in order to succeed, including committing new crimes. Appleseed recommends fully funding diversion programs and alternatives to incarceration, rather than relying on program participants to foot the bills. We assisted the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office in the development of Reset, a program that does just that.  

Alabama’s reliance on life imprisonment for a wide range of offenses has resulted in soaring numbers of older, incarcerated people trapped in prison until death. Appleseed’s 2022 report “Unsustainable” details Alabama’s rapidly-aging prison population and rising cost to the state to care for the more than 7000 incarcerated people over age 50. Appleseed recommends passage of a “second look” bill that would provide a mechanism for judges to review the sentences of people serving life and life without parole under Alabama’s Habitual Felony Offender Act, who have already served decades and have demonstrated rehabilitation. Expanding medical furlough laws to work as intended can also immediately alleviate systemic strain while recognizing the humanity of the individuals in Alabama’s prisons. 

In 2025 Appleseed published the “Positive Programs” report that gives examples of real-world prison programs, many led by incarcerated people, in other states that are reducing recidivism and instances of violence and fostering more humane conditions of confinement. Appleseed recommends that Alabama lawmakers, ADOC officials and other stakeholders should reach out to those out-of-state leaders to learn more about these programs, that ADOC should recognize the most successful programs are led by incarcerated people themselves and ADOC should increase its collaborations with universities and other programming partners.

You can learn more about these and other related issues by reading these and other Appleseed’s reports.

What YOU can do

Show up! The Joint Legislative Prison Oversight Committee has scheduled three meetings for 2026:

• January 28
• April 22
• July 22, which will be the annual public hearing during which individual members of the public may address the board.

The presence of everyday Alabamians, families and friends of incarcerated people, faith leaders, and advocates at these meetings has led to real, systemic change and has created a renewed focus on the crisis in Alabama’s prisons. We encourage you to attend! If you can’t, the meeting can be watched live or later on The Alabama Channel. Continued attendance by concerned Alabama’s is critical to ensuring legislators know their constituents are watching. Already, the committee has taken noticed of increased attention from the public. The October committee meeting was packed and a larger room was required to hold everyone. Great job advocates!

Find out who your state legislators are and get to know them! It’s important to not only know who they are, but to build a relationship with them so you can reach out to them proactively, rather than only in a reactionary way. They represent YOU– make sure they hear from you so they can do it well! Find contact information for your state senator here, and your representative here. You do not have to be an expert on criminal justice reform. You can simply share that you are a voter who cares about the rights and treatment of incarcerated people and you want to know what they are doing to make prisons safer beyond just building more of them. You can also contact Appleseed’s Policy Director, Elaine Burdeshaw, for tips on speaking with lawmakers. She can be reached at elaine.burdeshaw@alabamaappleseed.org.

Pay attention to criminal justice legislation during the 2026 Alabama Legislative session, which starts in January. Because 2026 is an election year, lawmakers feel pressure to avoid taking risks. Leaders who support even modest prison reform can be accused of being “soft on crime,” which is unpopular in Alabama and part of what has led to the crisis documented above. While 2026  will be a tough session for creating change through legislation, even tougher than the previous six sessions, where little was accomplished, lawmakers must hear from constituents!. Sign up for Appleseed emails to learn more about the issues, the bills, and how to engage with elected officials during this important session.

Host a presentation at your church, civic group, school, or business– reach out to us and we’d be happy to join you. Appleseed can provide reports and materials to educate you and your colleagues. Also, our formerly incarcerated clients can be part of a presentation to provide vital insight on prison conditions and the urgency of reform.

Spread the word. Tell your friends, neighbors, community members about what you know. Advocacy and change often move at the speed of relationships– the more we all know, the more we can do together! Appleseed’s website contains numerous ways to learn about these issues and get involved. You can also request a presentation by Appleseed. Our policy experts, legal staff, and formerly incarcerated clients speak across the state (and sometimes in other states!) about all aspects of Alabama’s criminal justice system. Email us at admin@alabamaappleseed.org to request a presentation.

Visit the #NoMore Campaign website. The Alabama Solution campaign website contains more data, policy suggestions, and a call to action for all Alabamians to get involved. Visit NoMoreAlabama.com.

Finally, if you have a loved one who is sick or being mistreated in an Alabama prison, you should be able to get information about them. ADOC in 2025 formed the department’s Constituent Services unit staffed with employees at each major prison tasked with providing information to concerned family members and acting upon pleas from those family members and advocates for help when incarcerated people are in danger. That online form can be found here.