Mary Scott Hodgin: A heads up before we get going. This is a grown-up story about prison. It describes violent acts including sexual assault. It's not for kids and it may not be for all adult listeners. 

The U.S. Department of Justice says Alabama’s prisons are so dangerous, they violate the constitution. 

And they say a big part of the problem is overcrowding. 

U.S. Justice officials say Alabama’s prisons are overflowing with people and that overcrowding breeds violence. 

The allegations are part of a lawsuit that could lead to federal oversight if conditions don’t improve. 

The crisis didn’t happen overnight. 

A lot of it can be traced to sentencing laws passed decades ago when America was getting tough on crime.

Charlie Graddick (advertisement): Another woman has been raped and murdered.

Mary Scott Hodgin: This is a campaign ad from the 1970s. A man named Charlie Graddick was running for Attorney General of Alabama. 

We see Graddick in an alleyway, standing near the chalk outline of a body.

Charlie Graddick (advertisement): As your attorney general, I’ll seek the death penalty for cold blooded murderers and I’ll apply the law fairly and uniformly. We’ve got to wipe out crime before it wipes us out. 

Narrator (advertisement): Charlie Graddick. A man of conviction.

Mary Scott Hodgin: The campaign worked. Graddick served two terms as Attorney General of Alabama. 

During that time, Alabama passed some of its strictest sentencing laws.

The same thing was happening across the country. Lots of prosecutors were getting elected with the same promise, to lock up the “bad guys.” And there was pressure to keep them locked up longer. 

The combination created a prison system in Alabama that’s now bursting at the seams. 

From WBHM in Birmingham, this is Deliberate Indifference: the story of Alabama’s prison crisis and the people inside it. 

I’m Mary Scott Hodgin. 

In this episode, we hear from men who’ve spent decades behind bars. They were sentenced during America’s “tough on crime” era, which continues to shape Alabama’s prison population.

PART ONE

Ron McKeithen grew up in Birmingham, in a neighborhood called Titusville. 

He remembers breaking rules at an early age. 

Ron McKeithan: There’s this store called Atlantic Mills.

Mary Scott Hodgin: Atlantic Mills was a department store, popular back in the 60’s and 70’s. McKeithen would go there often with his mom and his grandmother. 

Ron McKeithan: I remember, I’ve seen my mother and my grandmother shoplift. They was kind of, some of it was kind of smooth or whatever, but you know kids notice stuff. And so, shoot, I started stealing hot cars. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: He stole Hot Wheels.  

One day, he says his grandmother got caught shoplifting. McKeithen started getting caught for stuff too.

Ron McKeithan: But that just led to another strings of going to family court or going to juvenile for other little things, like, you know, parking meters, car theft, trespassing. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: Things were rough at home. McKeithen says his mom was addicted to alcohol. He would try to stop her from drinking. One time when he tried to intervene, she stabbed him. 

McKeithen started skipping school. He got kicked out when he was in the 10th grade. And he started using drugs. 

Ron McKeithan: And then the streets swallowed me up. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: When he was 18, Ron McKeithen got his first felony conviction - third degree burglary. The next year, he was convicted of illegal possession and fraudulent use of a credit card.

McKeithen got those first felonies not long after Alabama passed a law called the Habitual Felony Offender Act. 

Laws like this are often referred to as “three strikes” laws because a third felony triggers a harsher prison sentence.

Alabama’s three strikes law passed in 1977 just after the state’s prison system was put under federal supervision.

Some considered the law to be one of the strictest in the nation. 

Back in Birmingham, in 1983, Ron McKeithen and a friend robbed a convenience store. They stole a few hundred dollars from two men working in the store. McKeithen and his friend were armed, but no shots were fired. No one was physically injured. Still the crime was a “Violent Class A felony.”

And because he had those priors, the burglary and the credit card convictions, it was Ron McKeithen’s “third strike.”

He was 21 years old. 

Ron McKeithen: When the judge, when I went to sentencing, you know, I was really, still really like not even believing that I actually, you know, got convicted. And so when the judge sentenced me to life without parole and he really said that he regretted having to do this to me that young. And even then, I didn’t really have the full understanding of what life without parole meant. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: McKeithen says he’s still trying to make sense of it. 

Ron McKeithen: Oh man, my hope, not just my hope, but my faith in God would waiver. Because, I knew I didn’t deserve. I knew I deserved to be in prison, but I didn’t deserve to be in there that long or with that sentence. But I just got caught up in the political area where the habitual offender act was just strong then. And the DA’s was just trying to, you know, they was just locking them up. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: When Ron McKeithen was sentenced to life without parole, the country was beginning a new era of criminal justice. 

In the decade that followed, states passed laws focused on people considered to be “habitual offenders.” They passed other requirements, like mandatory minimums, that made sentences longer and longer for crimes like drug possession. Judges had less flexibility on sentencing. 

And the prison population exploded.

Marta Nelson: And so how do we get here? Well, we got here by applying theories of sentencing that are very harsh and are consistently applied differently to white and Black Americans.

Mary Scott Hodgin: This is Marta Nelson. She studies sentencing at the Vera Institute of Justice. The non-profit works on reforms to make the justice system more accountable. 

In the decades before those tough sentencing laws passed in the 1970s and 80s, Nelson says there was brutal violence across the United States targeting people of color.

Marta Nelson: It was really still a lot of extrajudicial punishment, obviously lynchings, other forms of extrajudicial control of Black bodies.

Mary Scott Hodgin: During the century after the Civil War, there were bombings and mob violence. White crowds lynched thousands of Black people across the country. 

A lot of these crimes are detailed in a report by the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal non-profit that also maintains a memorial to lynching victims in Montgomery, Alabama.

Many white people defended this racial violence. They said it was protection from so-called “dangerous Black criminals.”

Marta Nelson says the Civil Rights Movement changed things. It ended the era of Jim Crow, a set of legal and social norms that codified anti-Black discrimination and segregation.

But Nelson says racism and fear didn’t go away.

Marta Nelson: So then when you get to the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, and for the first time, this sort of discrimination under color of law is removed, so at least on the books, all races are to be treated the same, that’s when you see punishment become more severe.

Mary Scott Hodgin: Nelson says something else was happening around this time. Crime increased. 

From the 1960s through the 1970s, she says, the homicide rate in the United States nearly doubled. 

Marta Nelson: And during that period, really there's fear mongering that takes hold. Media starts reporting crucially salacious and race-baiting stories about crime. And law and order advocates seize this moment to call for harsher and more certain punishments.

Mary Scott Hodgin: Nelson says people were scared. They wanted less crime.   

And back then, some of the nation’s top politicians focused on drugs. 

President Richard Nixon: America’s public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse… 

Mary Scott Hodgin: That’s President Richard Nixon speaking during a press conference in 1971. 

In the decades that followed, across the country police arrested more people on drug charges. Prosecutors filled up court rooms. And tougher sentences meant the prison population started increasing. 

News Clip 1: This country now has more people in prison than ever before. 283,000. 

News Clip 2: With 454,000 people behind bars.  

News Clip 3: More convicts behind bars now than ever before, more than a half million across the country. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: By 2009, More than 1.5 million people were locked up in state and federal prisons. 

Over the course of four decades, the incarcerated population in the United States increased by almost 700 percent.

And this had a bigger impact on some communities than others. 

Here’s a news report from 1990. 

News Clip 4: Some figures out tonight tell a shocking story of a new, lost generation of Americans. Young, Black males. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: Young, Black males, incarcerated at a disproportionate rate. 

It’s a disparity that continues today. 

Data from 2018 show that Black men across the nation are incarcerated at a rate of more than five times that of white men. Hispanic people are also incarcerated at a disproportionate rate.

Here in Alabama, Black people make up about a quarter of the general population. But according to the state prison system, more than half of the people incarcerated are Black. 

Thaddeus Johnson: Police decisions impacts court decisions which in turn impacts prison admissions.

Mary Scott Hodgin: Thaddeus Johnson is a senior research fellow for the Council on Criminal Justice, a nonprofit think tank. He’s also a former police officer. 

Johnson says racial disparities in the prison population reflect issues beyond the justice system.  

Thaddeus Johnson: It’s deeply seated racial inequities in our society. And certain groups bear the brunt of these inequities more than others. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: He points to the fact that Black Americans are more likely than white Americans to live below the poverty line. Predominantly Black communities have fewer resources and less access to economic opportunities and health care.

Thaddeus Johnson: All of these things are connected. And you talk about the cumulative nature of disparity. People think disparity is this one thing. Disparity is so cumulative, before you even get to the police.

Mary Scott Hodgin: He says because of these inequities, people of color are more likely to come into contact with law enforcement.

Thaddeus Johnson: Because police are concentrated in neighborhoods that tend to be Black and brown and socioeconomically disadvantaged because it has conditions that’s ripe for crime. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: Johnson says people in these communities are more likely to get arrested for the same crimes that happen in other neighborhoods, like low level drug crimes.

He says they can face racial bias by police or prosecutors. And they’re less likely to afford pre-trial bail or an attorney. 

Thaddeus Johnson: All of these things come together to cause Black and brown people to spend more time behind bars. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: Johnson says this cycle also creates distrust between Black communities and the police, which can make it harder to investigate and solve violent crimes like homicides. 

Looking back, it was clear that the country’s prisons could not keep up with the growing prison population. 

Here’s a news report from 1981. 

News Clip 5: Twenty-nine states are under court mandates to do something about prison overcrowding. Convicts in Texas are sleeping in tents. Wisconsin wants to send some of its prisoners to Minnesota where there is more room. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: Prisoners sleeping in tents. Court mandates to resolve overcrowding.

Forty years later, there are still too many people in Alabama’s prisons. As a result, officials are using space in new ways. Former gyms in some of the state’s prisons are now dormitories where sometimes hundreds of men live and sleep.

The problem overflows into county jails too. State inmates often spend months there waiting to be transferred to state prisons.

The delay got worse during the pandemic. 

The growing prison population has also created a hefty price tag. 

In the past two decades, the Alabama Department of Corrections’ budget has tripled. Today, Alabama spends more than twice as much on prisons as it does on public health and mental health combined.

The U.S. Justice Department says overcrowding is one of the biggest problems inside Alabama’s prisons. 

Justice officials say holding more people than a facility can handle contributes to an “overwhelming amount of violence.” 

And this is something that leaders of the prison system have been pretty open about. 

During a tour of Bibb County Correctional Facility in March of 2020, the commissioner at the time, Jeff Dunn, showed me a few dormitories, where men are stacked in bunk beds. 

And he started talking about conditions at other prisons around the state. He said at one facility there’s a mass dormitory where more than 300 men live and sleep.  It’s a converted canning plant.

Jeff Dunn: And you walk in. It's just this expansive room that it's obvious from when you walk in that you can only see maybe one or two rows back and there's five, six rows of double bunks. And so it can be exceptionally challenging, even if you do have enough staff that's moving in and out of that facility. To see everything. And I think you got to keep in mind that there are places where inmates are actively trying to do things that we don't want them doing. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: This is all detailed in a 2019 report by U.S. Justice officials. 

The report found inside these big dormitories across the state, men have tied people up and raped them. They often hide cell phones and homemade weapons. Some men get high and pass out. 

And violence isn't the only problem brought on by overcrowding. During a pandemic, attempts at social distancing are nearly impossible in dormitories housing upwards of 100 people. 

The thing about overcrowding is that everyone seems to agree that it’s a problem. But they almost never agree on what to do about it. 

One option is to build more prisons, which is what states across the country did during the 80s and 90s.

But that doesn’t address the source of the problem. Which takes us back to sentencing. 

In recent years, there’ve been efforts across the country, including in Alabama, to roll back some of the harsh sentencing laws passed decades ago. 

But it’s complicated. 

Bennet Wright has been studying Alabama’s prison population for more than a decade. He’s the executive director of the state’s Sentencing Commission. 

Wright will be the first to tell you it can be hard to find common ground. 

Bennet Wright: People are rarely ambivalent when you discuss criminal justice and they're never ambivalent when you start talking about sentencing. People have very, very strong feelings, either based on personal experiences or really based on perceptions, what they've seen, what they've heard. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: Popular culture surrounds us with images of crime and violence. 

Some of the most popular TV shows, movies and podcasts are about crime. 

And some people are victims of violent crime. 

These experiences and stories can shape our feelings and opinions.

Wright says all of that makes sentencing reform difficult. 

Bennet Wright: I think that's why a lot of times people look elsewhere in the system to make changes rather than coming back to sentencing, because sentencing is so, it's such an emotionally charged policy issue. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: I’ve watched Alabama lawmakers debate sentencing laws and this rings true. Things can get emotional. And they can also be reactive. 

Sentencing reform has support until there’s a sensational crime all over the news. 

Going back to the early 2000s, some lawmakers were getting worried about Alabama’s growing prison population. They were concerned about the growing costs of incarceration and the possibility of federal intervention. So Alabama created a group called the Sentencing Commission to study overcrowding and state sentencing laws and come up with ideas to improve the system. 

After a few years, the group developed new guidelines, rules for who should go to prison and how long they should stay. Part of the idea was to stop sending as many people to prison for low level non-violent crimes, like minor theft and drug offenses. Instead, to use other forms of punishment like supervised release rather than time behind bars.  

It took a while to convince judges and prosecutors. But in 2013, Alabama made the guidelines presumptive, which means they were mostly mandatory. 

And Bennet Wright says it worked.

Bennet Wright: The prison population began to fall on October 1st, 2013. That was the first day of implementation of the presumptive guidelines. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: For the first time in decades, Alabama started to lock up fewer people. The state was also letting more people out on parole. And it passed a law that made some felonies less severe.

Bennet Wright: So the prison population dropped by over 20 percent in five years, which is very substantial.

Mary Scott Hodgin: In terms of overcrowding, it was progress. And the trend lasted for a few years. But then something happened. A case that put the spotlight on the corrections and justice system. 

A triple murder, allegedly involving someone who was out on parole. 

After a break, more about the case that would turn Alabama’s parole system inside out.  

You're listening to Deliberate Indifference, from WBHM in Birmingham.

PART TWO 

Mary Scott Hodgin: This is a grown-up story about prison. It details violent acts including sexual assault. It's not for kids and it may not be for all adult listeners. 

This is Deliberate Indifference. I’m Mary Scott Hodgin.

Before we go any further, I want to explain a little about parole. If sentencing is the gateway to prison, parole is one of the exits. If you get paroled, you leave prison before the end of your sentence, and you have to follow certain rules. 

These days, Alabama does not release as many inmates on parole as it used to, which means fewer people are leaving prison, which impacts overcrowding. 

It’s one of the reasons Bennet Wright says people should pay more attention to parole. 

Wright directs Alabama’s Sentencing Commission. 

Bennet Wright: In states that have parole usually the ultimate determinant of when people get out of get out of prison is a small number of people that serve on the parole board. For most cases, especially those individuals that serve very long sentences, they are the ultimate determinant of when people are released from prison. Obviously, a component to any release decision is that of public safety.

Mary Scott Hodgin: But sometimes things go horribly wrong. 

In the summer of 2018, a triple murder case put the spotlight on a small city in northern Alabama.

Tommy James: Guntersville hadn't had a murder in, I don't remember exactly, but it had been years. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: Tommy James is a lawyer who worked on this case. 

Tommy James: Small town known for fishing, you know, they have the best fishing anywhere in the country. Just good people. Good lake town. And it was shocking.

Mary Scott Hodgin: A 74-year old woman was strangled and stabbed to death at her home in Guntersville. Her 7-year old great-grandson died from blunt force trauma. Their neighbor, a 65-year old woman, was also murdered, allegedly after being hit with the blunt side of a hatchet. 

The story was all over the news. 

Tommy James: The media up there obviously ran with this story and pretty quick some reporters up in Huntsville that cover that area realized something, something, something was wrong here, something was seriously wrong. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: In July of 2018, police arrested a man named Jimmie O’Neal Spencer and charged him with the three murders in Guntersville. They allege it was a robbery gone bad.

According to state officials, Spencer was out of prison on parole at the time. In the months leading up to the crime, he had violated his parole several times, but had not been taken back into custody or sent back to prison.

The state’s victim’s advocacy group was outraged and politicians responded. 

Keep in mind, when all this was happening, Alabama’s prison population was at its lowest point in years thanks in part to sentencing reform and more people getting out on parole. 

But the next year, in 2019, lawmakers restructured the parole department. Alabama’s governor, Kay Ivey, appointed someone new to take over the agency. 

News Clip 1: Well Governor Kay Ivey has appointed former Alabama Attorney General Charlie Graddick to serve as director of the Board of Pardons and Paroles. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: The same Charlie Graddick who served two terms as state Attorney General, who ran on a platform of locking up the bad guys and keeping them in prison. 

Forty years later, he’s back. 

Graddick Advertisement: We’ve got to wipe out crime before it wipes us out. Charlie Graddick, a man of conviction. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: Graddick refused repeated requests for an interview while he was director of the parole department. 

During his 15 months on the job, Graddick shut down parole hearings for more than two months. He said the parole board wasn’t giving crime victims enough notice and he wanted to change the system. 

Right before parole hearings started back up, Graddick spoke publicly at a press conference.

Charlie Graddick: I want to thank y’all for being here today.

Mary Scott Hodgin: He answered questions and talked for about thirty minutes. Graddick told reporters that the parole board had to be really careful about who they let out. He said it wasn’t the parole board’s job to fix prison overcrowding.

Charlie Graddick: I cringe when people say, “Well, it costs so much to keep somebody in prison.”

Mary Scott Hodgin: Then Graddick said something that gets at the heart of what makes sentencing reform so difficult. 

Charlie Graddick: Anybody in here lost a loved one to a crime? And what about a woman who is wrestled to the ground and raped? Think of the psychological and mental and emotional harm that that has caused not only to her, but all of her family members and some friends. So the cost of housing somebody is not going to be our priority, period. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: Charlie Graddick led the Bureau of Pardons and Paroles for about a year. 

Before he took office, the state was granting about 50 percent of paroles. 

During Graddick’s tenure, the parole board reviewed fewer cases and granted about 20 percent of them. 

Graddick resigned from the position in November of 2020. And since then, the rate has declined even more. The state granted 15 percent of paroles in fiscal year 2021. And there’s a racial disparity. 

That 2021 data show white people were granted parole at more than double the rate of Black people. 

The chair of the state parole board, Leigh Gwathney, did not respond to an interview request.

Low parole rates mean fewer people are leaving prison. So in 2019, after years of decline, the prison population started to tick back up again.

Here’s Bennet Wright with the Sentencing Commission.

Bennet Wright: In the realm of public policy, you know, the pendulum swings some of the time. You know, and a lot of times, that pendulum swings rapidly, particularly in heated moments.

Mary Scott Hodgin: For decades, Alabama’s prison population went in mostly one direction. 

It increased rapidly starting in the early 1980s, while federal courts took control of the state prison system. 

By the early 2000s, Alabama’s prison population had quadrupled in size. 

The growth continued until around 2013. That’s when judges started using the state’s new sentencing guidelines. 

After that, Alabama’s prison population declined for a few years.

Most recently, the population has fluctuated. It’s gone up because of low parole rates and dropped because of the pandemic. 

But the system is still overcrowded. 

According to recent data, Alabama’s prison system houses more than 150% of the population it’s designed for. 

Overcrowding is a big part of the U.S. Justice Department’s contention that Alabama is violating prisoners' constitutional rights. 

But federal officials have not demanded changes to Alabama’s sentencing laws. They did not order the state to lock up fewer people. 

Since the Justice Department released its first report about Alabama’s prison system, there have been some discussions about sentencing reform. 

Lawmakers debated a few related bills. But most attempts at reform have been unsuccessful. 

Remember the Habitual Felony Offender Act? Some people call it Alabama’s three strikes law. Well, it’s still on the books. And it continues to affect people’s lives. 

We met Ron McKeithen earlier in our story. He’s the man who was sentenced to life without parole in 1984 for armed robbery.

Carla Crowder: So we found out about Ron’s case in late 2019.

Mary Scott Hodgin: Carla Crowder runs a legal non-profit called Alabama Appleseed. A few years ago, she learned about Ron McKeithen from a writer named Beth Shelburne.

Crowder filed a petition for what’s called “sentencing relief.” 

She got support from the local prosecutor and the victims of the crime, two men in a convenience store. And in December of 2020, a judge approved the petition and ordered Ron McKeithen to be released from prison. He’d served 37 years of a life without parole sentence. He was 58 years old. 

Crowder says today, Alabama’s habitual offender law is not as harsh as it once was thanks to some sentencing reforms. But those changes were not retroactive. 

And that ‘life without parole’ sentence McKeithen got back in 1984, Crowder says things are different now.

Carla Crowder: If Ronald had been sentenced today, he would receive probably a 20 year sentence, a 15 or 20 year sentence, that would have been turned into a split sentence. So maybe 3 to 5 years to serve.

Mary Scott Hodgin: Three to five years in prison, the rest on supervised release. 

Ron McKeithen spent nearly 40 years behind bars. 

Carla Crowder: Right, we still need to fix the Habitual Felony Offender Act.

Mary Scott Hodgin: Crowder says there are still hundreds of people like Ron McKeithen, men over the age of 50, serving life or life without parole under the Habitual Felony Offender Act for crimes that would yield much shorter sentences today.

She says lawmakers need to create a legal avenue for these men to leave prison. 

Carla Crowder: It doesn't make sense to keep the oldest people who are rehabilitated and who all of the evidence shows are least likely to reoffend. And that cost a ton in medical care locked in our unconstitutional prisons. We still need a bill. 

Chris England: This is House Bill 107 and what it seeks to repeal the Habitual Felony Offender Act in Alabama.

Mary Scott Hodgin: During the 2021 legislative session, one Alabama lawmaker, Democratic State Representative Chris England, tried to get rid of the law all together.  

England is a former prosecutor and chair of the state’s Democratic party. When he got up to debate this bill, he was prepared for a fight.

The most vocal opponent was Republican Representative Matt Simpson, also a former prosecutor. Simpson said the three strikes law is still an important option in some cases.

Matt Simpson: But there, but there are situations, and you have victims of crime that are comfortable knowing that someone will never get out. That they don’t have to worry whether they’re going to show up at a parole hearing 15 years down the line. If somebody has three Class A’s and commits a murder…

Mary Scott Hodgin: There were a few hearings with back and forth debate, arguing about potential sentences with and without the habitual offender law. At one point, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Jim Hill cut off the debate. 

Jim Hill: Hold up. Hang on, y’all I’m. Hang on just a second everybody. I think we’re getting to a point where all we’re doing is arguing.

Mary Scott Hodgin: And that’s when Representative England made a final plea.

Chris England: We serve longer for every criminal offense than just about every state in the Union. So, again, I don't want anybody to walk away from this situation saying that taking away habitual offender, which, by the way, did not exist, is not. Has not been in existence forever. So, because habitual offender exists, we have, we have gotten addicted to it, as if it's the only way we can manage our criminal justice system.

Mary Scott Hodgin: The bill did not pass. England tried again in the 2022 session but to no avail. 

While lawmakers were debating in Montgomery, I got several phone calls from Jim George. 

Jim George: All I’ve got to hope for is that they change the law. That’s the only prayer I’ve got. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: George is incarcerated at Donaldson Prison.

He was sentenced to life without parole under the Habitual Felony Offender Act in 1982.

George’s earliest convictions include grand larceny. He was also convicted of sexual assault, a crime he denies. He was later convicted of a string of mostly second and third-degree burglaries. George has been incarcerated for more than 40 years. 

He pays attention to what lawmakers talk about. The reform bills they consider. He often gets hopeful they’ll make some change that will give him a second chance.

Jim George: Every year, for the last 20 I know, they’ve been saying something, up until the legislature meets. And then all this bull comes out about the danger that’s involved. People whose families were injured in some ways. One of ‘em killed. Or a woman raped or a child kidnapped. And then they all jump right on that. Trying to scare the public. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: At 72 years old, George says osteoporosis forces him to use a wheelchair to get around prison. He has tremors and says he’s been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. George says he tried for a medical furlough but was told he’s ineligible because of the sexual assault conviction from 1974. 

Jim George knows Ron McKeithen, who was released in December of 2020. 

They lived in the same dorm at Donaldson Prison. George says he was happy to see McKeithen leave. He says it gives him hope that he might get out one day too.

Jim George: What I don’t understand is why more people outside don’t get involved in this. The groups that are trying to do something out there today to help inmates, help get ‘em out, there’s not that many of them. And we need a lot more. I feel like crying sometimes just thinking about this shit. 

The Sentencing Commission’s executive director Bennet Wright says sentencing reform is not only emotional, it’s subjective. 

Bennet Wright: I think there's a lot of things that we don't agree on. One: who should go to prison and how long should they serve? You know, those, those are two simple questions. It's going to be very difficult. And like I said, this is not just Alabama. This is everywhere. Those are very nuanced questions. Who goes to prison? How long do those individuals stay?

Mary Scott Hodgin: Today, many Alabama lawmakers say they’ve addressed sentencing reform. 

And compared to a decade ago, there are fewer people in prison for many lower-level crimes like drug possession and theft.   

But there are still roughly 20,000 people in Alabama’s prisons.  

About 15-hundred of them are serving life without parole. Unless something changes, they’ll never leave prison. 

The vast majority of people in prison now don’t benefit from most sentencing reforms. 

That’s because 80 percent of them are there for crimes classified as violent. So they’re not eligible. 

Here’s Bennet Wright.

Bennet Wright: Sentencing reform in the last 10 to 15 years predominantly was always restricted to non-violent offenses. And people went out of their way to say we’re excluding violence, or crimes of violence, from this reform. It was always purposefully left on the side. Because part of the tradeoff on some of these policies was, “If we handle nonviolent offenders in such a way, that gives us the capability to incapacitate violent offenders for longer periods of time.” 

Mary Scott Hodgin: In Alabama, violent crime includes murder, rape, and armed robbery. It also includes drug trafficking and burglary of an occupied building. 

Bennet Wright says for now, these crimes are not likely to be included in future sentencing reform. 

Wright says there’s no single piece of legislation that will significantly decrease the inmate population or fix all of the problems in Alabama’s prison system. 

It’s been more than a year since Ron McKeithen got out of prison. He lives in Birmingham now where he works as a re-entry coordinator and youth mentor. 

The victims of his armed robbery back in 1983 also live in Birmingham.

One of them runs a corner store downtown.

Farooq Janjua: My name is Farooq Janjua.

Mansoor Butt: My name is Mansoor Butt.

Mary Scott Hodgin: Almost 40 years ago, Farooq Janjua and Mansoor Butt were working at a different convenience store when Ron McKeithen and another man robbed them at gunpoint. 

Janjua says it all happened so fast. No one was hurt. 

Farooq Janjua: They just took the cash and my small pistol from me. And they left. Then we called the police and we filed the report and stuff.

Mary Scott Hodgin: Janjua and Butt found out a few years ago that McKeithen was still in prison because of the crime. They couldn’t believe it. 

Farooq Janjua: Even my wife said, “That’s too much.” 

Mansoor Butt: Yeah, it was unfair. It was unfair. That was not. He don’t deserve this type of punishment. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: Their experience with the criminal justice system shows how much variation there can be in sentencing. 

Because during a different armed robbery in the 1990’s, Farooq Janjua was shot multiple times. The police arrested one of the guys who shot him and that man served less time in prison than Ron McKeithen who didn’t fire a shot.  

Mansoor Butt says what troubles him is that the guy who shot his friend was eventually released on parole but went back to prison. 

He says prison does not prevent crime. 

Mansoor Butt: It’s a school. It’s a university of crime. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: Butt says he’s seen many people go in and out of prison over and over again.   

Mansoor Butt: For a 20-year-old child, to put him in a jail for 20 years. He don’t do nothing. He don’t learn nothing. He don’t make nothing out of it. You can put a person, 20 year old, in some trade school for 5 years. He can be engineer. He can have a job outside. But if you put him over there, when he come out, door closed on him 90 percent good jobs. So that’s why, most felon, they go back. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: Across the country, crime rates are down from their peak decades ago. 

But during the pandemic, some cities saw an increase in violent crime. According to data from the FBI, homicides in the U.S. increased nearly 30% in 2020.

Since the country launched its so-called “war on drugs,” overdose deaths have actually increased and Illicit drug use continues.

For people who go to prison, recidivism is still a problem. By one estimate, 26 percent of people incarcerated in Alabama had previously served time, been released and returned within three years.  

So the question is, can we break that cycle? Can prisons do more than just warehouse people?

Prison officials say it’s possible.  

Jeff Dunn: My goal ultimately is to create somewhat of a programming institution.

Mary Scott Hodgin: They say educational and religious programs can help.

But inside prison, there’s a different reality. 

Hassani Jennings: You’d be surprised how well people that are incarcerated do what’s expected of them to do while they are in prison. Nothing is expected of them. 

That’s next time, on Deliberate Indifference. 

This is Deliberate Indifference. 

I’m Mary Scott Hodgin. I wrote and reported this episode. 

Kate Smith and Gigi Douban edited the script.

Meg Martin fact checked the episode.

Matthew Hancock created our music and served as audio engineer.

Miranda Fulmore helped with production assistance and digital material. 

Help along the way from Audrey Atikins and Andrew Yeager 

Website design by Cayenne Creative 

NPR’s Story Lab helped get this project started. Thanks to Debbie Elliott and Peter Breslow. 

And special thanks to Alberto Amable Enes Romero.

To hear all of our episodes, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

And be sure to check out our website for more details. That’s deliberate indifference dot org. 

Join me next time for a new episode of Deliberate Indifference.