Mass Incarceration and Unconstitutional Prisons

Alabama’s entire state prison system for men has been declared unconstitutional by the United States Department of Justice. In 2020, the federal government sued the State of Alabama for violating the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights of incarcerated people by “failing to prevent prisoner-on-prisoner violence and sexual abuse, failing to protect prisoners from the use of excessive force by security staff, and failing to provide safe conditions of confinement.” In 2014, the state’s women’s prison, Tutwiler, was also found unconstitutional, largely due to sexual abuse of incarcerated women by prison staff.