But, in M's view, the Governor, the Parole Board, and others in charge "ain't sayin nothin, man. There's probably people here [who violated probation] with dirty urine that are back. There's people in here with way under a year left " They should be gone. Help them into society, and get em straight, but all you're doing is, when it's your time to go, then they don't know nothin. They just get back out there and do whatever they did to come back, instead of gettin them off into something startin them off in the free world. Like, 'We're going to take you to this halfway house, and these folks are going to help you get a job, and this and that, and set a stage for you,'" he says.
The discussion with M is nearing the end, but doesn't feel over. This writer and this prisoner feel something missing, something else to get at, talked out and heard.
M continues: "It's way deeper than some of the topics that you're writing on. The overcrowding and how the living conditions is, man, they know all that. They know these are old prisons. They know that. Man, it's mostly - the problem is: Why ain't you releasing them?"
In a previous story on Ventress, a prisoner there noted that the only solution to overcrowded prisons is releasing people.
Director of Communications at the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles, Terry Abbott, responds to an email inquiry for this article in early August, writing that the board has paroled only "278 inmates in 2020. Parole decisions are not based on whether there is prison overcrowding. The board has no legal authority to grant paroles based on the size of the prison population. Parole decisions are based on whether someone can be safely released into the community."
Alabama Governor Kay Ivee's Press Office has not responded to request for comment on whether the Governor plans to release nonviolent prisoners, and also has not responded to a request for comment on whether there is any way to implement social distancing in the State's prisons, and solve other problems related to overcrowding, other than releasing prisoners. The Governor's Press Office also does not answer an email inquiry as to why the State has not released more prisoners during the pandemic.
"Man," M continues, "if you look at the number of people incarcerated, and look at the number of people that's violent - murder, rape, kidnapping - all the offenders that's violent, that these prisons are supposed to hold " You ain't supposed to be holding these people in here on nonviolent crimes that ain't impacting the community, getting taxpayer's money to hold these folks. You're supposed to be putting these folks somewhere to rehabilitate them into something that's going to help them proceed in life, not just, every time you think about it, send them down here."
(Prisoners interviewed by HTR in various regions of Alabama describe prison as "down here," or "down in prison.")
M explains that understanding the problems related to and posed by mass incarceration, both during the pandemic and generally, "has got to start with the Governor, down to the Parole Board, down to the judges that ain't going by the guidelines of sending folks to prison, all of that, then you - once you get past all that - then you jump in the prison system and let them know how bad - see, if everybody in here was in here on a violent case, maybe it wouldn't matter about how you have shown them some obedience, or you put your hands on them, or something like that, but you got folks up in here that got real families, and that ain't did nothing."
He pauses, then continues. "So, you understand what I'm saying? So, it's way deeper than just overcrowding, and the living conditions, or - it's - it goes further before you get down to how we're living in here. It's got to start with who puts these folks here. Who puts these folks here? And who's over releasing these folks?" he says.
"It's overcrowded. They could have numbered it out, and said, 'Okay, all these nonviolents, we're gonna make the county do something to em where they can rehabilitate their self, give them a program, offer them jobs, stuff like that, to get them back started in society, instead of just, 'Okay, we're going to just crowd up our prisons,'" he explains.
M says he believes prisons should be for the most violent offenders. Otherwise, the human and economic costs are both too high.
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