G has lived in all but a couple of Alabama's adult male prisons throughout his single sentence, which started when he was 15 years old, for a crime he claims he did not commit.
With no parents, no legal guardian, no money, no formal education, no meaningful legal advocacy, and "no help" or resources in general, he tells HTR, he was tried and convicted as an adult when he turned 16 in the early 1980's, and has lived in Alabama's adult prisons ever since. He is currently in Ventress.
In G's experience, "They don't transfer no more like they used to. They used to just send you from prison to prison" randomly and frequently, through most of the time he's been incarcerated.
"They've kind of slowed that down now," he continues. "Only ways to get transferred now are, basically, you get into something - you know - catch a stabbing case, or have some type of " issue."
Over the decades, G has observed that the constant, random transfers "slowed down once [the prisons] got overcrowded."
He elaborates: "See, when I first came down [to prison] in the 80's, it wasn't as crowded as it is now. It's so crowded now, we are stacked on top of each other, man, and it's - just " They ain't lettin nobody out, Parole Board ain't letting nobody out - you know - and there's a lot of guys, man, that have done a lot of time, and deserve to be out."
G says mid-sentence transfers started decreasing "about 2007, 2008, 2009, somewhere along there."
According to a Sentencing Project chart on the number of state and Federal prisoners from 1925 to 2017, the number of Americans indeed peaked, and stayed at its highest, just before, during, and after the years G cites here.
G explains that, by then, the prisons "had to slow down, because they got so many people to deal with, Classification [Officers] got so many people to see - you know - and so many people to try to move, till - you know - they just can't move everybody at one time, so they started slowin down on them transfers " started moving two or three people at a time."
G "got locked up" in the early 1980's. "I was 15 years old when I first came to prison."
He reflects on the first couple of times he was transferred from one prison to another mid-sentence as a child in adult prisons.
"I first came to Kilby," still the "processing center" for all Alabama prisoners before the prison in which they'll first do time, and when they go there, are decided.
At 16, G was transferred out of Kilby, and "They sent me to " a maximum security prison," he recalls. "It was rough up there, because it was " my first time ever being in prison, first time ever going to a max camp, and - you know - it was kind of hard for me. You know?"
He elaborates: "I was real young, and I wasn't used to being in prison, and I wasn't used to being around those types of guys - you know - because you got all types of guys in a max camp."
He pauses, then adds, "I was a kid. I was scared."
He stayed at the first camp to which he was transferred from Kilby "for about six months," at then was transferred yet again, "and my third transfer was " anywhere between four to six months" after the second, "because they would just move me around. You know?"
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