Reports

Alabama Appleseed examines systemic drivers of poverty and inequity and offers evidence-based solutions for a brighter way forward. Read our reports.

Taking a Life

With life sentences, the State of Alabama controls thousands of rehabilitated individuals long past the point of danger, until death. But why?

Positive Programs

Lessons for prison systems across the United States where innovative reforms are curbing violence, reducing staff turnover and improving public safety.

Taken for a Ride

How excessive ticketing and police decisions propel Alabama drivers into a cycle of debt, incarceration.

Afterward

When violence occurs in Alabama, the state’s concept of justice leaves out many victims, survivors & their communities. What would they say if we asked them?

Unsustainable

Older prisoners have quickly shifted from a small group on the fringes to nearly a quarter of Alabama’s entire prison population.

A Bitter Pill

Alabama combines the nation’s highest opioid prescription rates with the nation’s deadliest prisons. Something must change.

Flattened

How the COVID-19 pandemic knocked financially insecure Alabamians on their backs and widened the racial prosperity gap

New Prisons for Old Men?

The number of young people in Alabama prisons has been cut in half over the last 15 years. Meanwhile, the number of people over age 50 has doubled.

Condemned

Hundreds of men are sentenced to die in prison for crimes with no physical injury. They haven’t given up on life. Why has Alabama given up on them?
 

Stalled

How Alabama’s destructive practice of suspending driver’s licenses for unpaid traffic debt hurts people & slows economic progress

Death Traps

An examination of the routine, violent deaths of people in the custody of the State of Alabama from 2014 through 2020.

When You Are a Hammer, Every Problem Looks Like a Nail

Alabama has the worst prisons in the country. Why building new prisons will do nothing to solve old problems in Alabama

State Prison Investigation

The U.S. Department of Justice found Alabama’s entire state prison system for men unconstitutional.

In Trouble

How diversion clashes with the reality of poverty, addiction, and structural racism in Alabama’s justice system

Hall Monitors with Handcuffs

How Alabama’s school resource officer program threatens the state’s most vulnerable children

Under Pressure — Fines and Fees

How fines and fees hurt people, undermine public safety, and drive Alabama’s racial wealth divide.

Alabama’s War on Marijuana

Assessing the fiscal and human toll of criminalization of Alabama’s war on marijuana

Broke — Payday Lending

How payday lenders crush Alabama communities, swooping in to extract profits from hard-working people

Forfeiting Your Rights — Civil Asset Forfeiture

How Alabama’s profit-driven civil asset forfeiture scheme undercuts due process and property rights