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. 

It’s February 2020. Pre-pandemic. 

More than 100 people are gathered in a big church auditorium in the suburbs of Birmingham, Alabama.

Up-beat praise music fills the room. 

Singing: Never stop praising you.

Mary Scott Hodgin: This is a training event for people who want to be religious volunteers inside Alabama’s prisons. 

Pastor Randy Walker leads the program. 

Randy Walker: Lord we especially lift up prayers today for the Department of Corrections.

Mary Scott Hodgin: Walker has been volunteering in Alabama’s prisons for more than a decade. 

When COVID restrictions allow it, he’s one of the hundreds of people who travel across the state to teach classes inside prison.

Volunteers, most of whom are affiliated with religious groups, provide much of the programming in Alabama’s prisons. They lead Bible studies and church services. But they also teach GED courses and classes about life skills and character building. 

Walker says they help incarcerated people prepare for life outside of prison. 

Randy Walker: I’ve got to help ‘em get educated. I’ve got to help ‘em get a job. I’ve got to help ‘em get prepared for that step. That gap between prison and community is huge. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: Most people who go to prison, about 95 percent, get out. They eventually leave prison and return to the free world. 

Walker says the way prison is set up, it doesn’t help people change their behavior.

Randy Walker: And that's, that's where we make the mistake is assuming that going to prison fixes them because it doesn't. Prison does not fix anybody. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: U.S. Justice officials say Alabama’s prisons are some of the most dangerous in the country. If conditions don’t improve, a federal judge could intervene. 

The Justice Department says part of the problem is that inside Alabama’s prisons, men don’t have enough opportunities for education, job training or work.

Instead, men have too much “idle time” in overcrowded dormitories with little supervision. 

The feds say the violence inside Alabama’s prisons is perpetuated by boredom. 

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 head behind bars to see how volunteers try to bring structure to some prison dormitories. 

PART ONE

Kervin Jones: Well, this is the church.

Mary Scott Hodgin: In September of 2021, I met Pastor Kervin Jones at his church, the Third Street Church of God, in Greensboro, Alabama.

Kervin Jones: This church was established here in 1898, 1897, about then. We are Wesleyan Holiness. We're mad Methodists, I tell people. We're a small congregation. Pre-pandemic, average attendance, about 40 or 50 people a Sunday. Our mission is to help people. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: Jones is 64 years old and he’s really tall, measures almost 6 feet, 7 inches. 

He’s been leading his church for more than two decades. 

The small city where he lives, Greensboro, is nestled in a rural part of the state. Most residents in the region are African American. It’s known as the Black Belt.

Kervin Jones: It's the Black Belt because of the soil. And we're, we're still segregated throughout, throughout more so than in other urban or suburban areas. Economic opportunities are not many here. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: Six generations of Jones’ family have lived here on the same land where his ancestors were once enslaved. 

Kervin Jones: Three times I know of, the Klan, KKK planned to come kill my dad. So that's how I grew up. Stand up for what's right even if it kills you.

Mary Scott Hodgin: In the early 2000s, Kervin Jones started volunteering inside Alabama prisons with an international faith-based group called Kairos Prison Ministry.

The experience had a big impact on him personally and politically. 

Kervin Jones: I was a true, true, true Republican. “If they commit a crime, lock em up, feed em bread and water.” That was my attitude. And when I got there and saw men and saw people who made some poor choices, it changed my outlook.

Mary Scott Hodgin: For several years, Jones taught classes inside prison on parenting and work ethics, which he says is funny because he doesn't have kids and his family jokes about how he doesn't like to work. 

Later he filled in as a volunteer chaplain at Bibb County Correctional Facility, spending 40 hours a week working with inmates while also working as a full-time pastor paid by his church.

After a few years of doing that, Jones helped develop and lead a program inside one of the prison dormitories at Bibb.

Kervin Jones: I was going every day, uh. I was the, the faith, the faith and character dorm volunteer, developing, teaching class in the faith and character dorm, for people who do not want to be in a Christian program, who have not been accepted into a Christian program, who are waiting but want to live in a structured environment.

Mary Scott Hodgin: That’s what Kervin Jones was doing when I first met him more than two years ago.

Back in March of 2020, right before COVID-19 shut everything down, I toured Bibb County Correctional Facility. 

The prison is about an hour from Birmingham in a small town called Brent.

I met up with a whole team of people. A few wardens, volunteers, public elations specialists and the commissioner at the time Jeff Dunn.  

Jeff Dunn: I’ll start off for your recording. I’m Jeff Dunn, I think you know my voice. But, first of all, Mary Scott, thank you for being here and thank you for giving us an opportunity to tell what we believe are some very important stories about the Department Of Corrections.

Mary Scott Hodgin: The group was sitting around a large conference table. The volunteers each told me a bit about themselves and their programs. Kervin Jones didn’t say much that day. 

Kervin Jones: I'm Kervin Jones and I work with Jumpstart and the Faith in Character dorm.

Mary Scott Hodgin: The focus that day was to talk about some of the prison programs and their positive outcomes. So, we took a tour.

Jeff Dunn: Ok, I think we can go in F dorm just to give you a quick little look. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: When we walked into the first dorm building, I immediately noticed the sound of these huge fans attached to the ceiling. It was warm that day and, with a few exceptions, there is no air conditioning in Alabama’s prisons.

For the most part, the dormitory room looked like others I’ve seen. Big, open, think warehouse, with rows of bunk beds. I wasn’t able to talk to the men inside but most of them were there sitting quietly on their beds.

Jeff Dunn: So Mitch, you want to tell us a little bit about…

Mitch Haubert: So ma’am, this is the seminary bay, BTS, and Jumpstart.

Mary Scott Hodgin: This is Mitch Haubert. He’s a pastor at a nearby church. 

At the time of my visit, Haubert worked with Kervin Jones to run a faith-based program called Jumpstart inside this dorm. It stands out because most other dorms don’t have this kind of program.

To participate in JumpStart, men have to agree to certain rules and sign a social contract. And Haubert says they stay busy.

Mitch Haubert: So you’ll notice, this is actually, this is our class schedule. So the guys start out, they’re doing workouts. I’m actually with them. I’m on the slim-slow program with them.

Mary Scott Hodgin: Slim Slow, ok.

Mitch Haubert: So they get up, 5 o’clock. They do workouts. They’re doing devotions. We have Bible studies.

Mary Scott Hodgin: The program also includes GED classes, life skills training and character building. 

Haubert says it’s an “around the clock” commitment. If you live in this dorm, you follow the rules and you go to class. And some incarcerated men help teach the classes. 

Mitch Haubert: And so you’ll notice, once again, just because the volunteer leaves, doesn’t mean the program stops. So these men are holding each other accountable. In the military we’d say they’re policing theirselves. And as the warden will tell you, if somebody’s busy, “an idle mind is the devil’s workshop.” So we keep them, they’re busy. They’re staying busy. They’re staying proactive. “How can I get ready to go home?”

Mary Scott Hodgin: The warden at Bibb was on the tour and he backed up what Haubert said. These dorms do not require as much security. Men hold each other accountable and “police themselves.” 

That’s especially helpful when volunteers are not able to be there in-person to run programs like during a pandemic.

We saw other programs during the tour including one that offers a seminary degree. Bibb also offers job training classes and academic courses.

Jeff Dunn, the corrections commissioner at the time, said these classes and faith-based programs are a big part of his department’s efforts to rehabilitate men inside prison. 

He said this type of programming they’ve implemented at Bibb is a model. 

Jeff Dunn: We decided to concentrate our efforts here, and my goal ultimately is to create some what of a programming institution so that all the inmates that are here are in some form of intensive programming and then that will set them up best for transition back into society. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: Alabama has 13 major prisons for men. They offer a variety of programs. 

One of the largest volunteer groups, from a Birmingham church called Church of the Highlands, works in almost every facility and has even donated equipment to stream services. 

Most volunteer groups have a smaller footprint.

Some prisons offer visual arts and theater classes, lecture series often run by college professors who volunteer their time.

Inmates can volunteer to work inside prison, cook in the kitchen or help in the infirmary. They typically are not paid for that type of work. A small percentage of inmates can participate in work release. They do receive some payment though prison officials wouldn’t confirm how much. Some reports suggest they’re paid $2 a day.

Incarcerated people can also participate in academics and job training. 

More than a dozen community colleges across Alabama provide a range of instruction including GED classes.  Five offer career training. 

Much of the funding for these courses comes from the state of Alabama. 

It’s one way that the state stands out nationwide. 

In fact, Alabama is thought to be the only state in the country with an entire academic institution that strictly serves an incarcerated population. 

Ingram State Technical College was established in 1965.

Instructors teach technical classes in welding, carpentry, heating and AC repair. 

The college offers courses inside a few of the state’s prisons. There’s also a separate main campus near Montgomery.

I visited in late 2019. 

It feels like a school until you look out the window and see the fences and barbed wire. But the men here are referred to as students.

In the carpentry area, I met Cedric Grady. He was sanding a chess board made of raw maple and walnut.

Cedric Grady: I haven't put the finishing part on it quite yet. I’m gonna put a coat of glaze on it to give it a type of shine. But it’ll be real nice though once I finish it. I may put a stain on it.

Mary Scott Hodgin: When Cedric Grady wasn’t at school, he was at one of Alabama’s biggest prisons, Elmore Correctional Facility. It’s about 5 miles from the Ingram campus. 

Grady said he enrolled in the carpentry program because his mom likes to fix up old houses. But he said going to college was also a chance to just do something better with his day. 

Cedric Grady: Like being at Elmore, just sitting around at the camp, it’s terrible. So I just, I know I needed to get away from the prison and this was my opportunity to get away. And when I actually got up here, I seen the opportunity to become successful and be knowledgeable, so I ran with it. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: When we talked, Grady was days away from finishing the carpentry program. He got rave reviews from his teachers. He’s since been released from prison and is working in construction.

Many people I talked to at Ingram State got really excited talking about the possibilities for when they leave prison. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: Ok what’s your name? 

Jonathan Lawrence Andrews: Jonathan Lawrence Andrews

Mary Scott Hodgin: Maybe the most excited was Jonathan Lawrence Andrews. 

Andrews is tall and has a big smile. He seemed nervous when we first started talking. He’s 32 years old and has been incarcerated since he was 19. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: So tell me about life before incarceration.

Jonathan Lawrence Andrews: Adolescent, come up in a cruel household. No father figure. Really trying to become a man on my own. A lot of people that I looked up to, they wasn’t good role models. I dropped out in the 10th grade.

Mary Scott Hodgin: At Ingram State, Andrews was working on his GED and enrolled in the welding program.

He loved it. He said he tried to convince other guys to sign up too because from a purely practical standpoint you can make a lot of money welding. 

Andrews is proud of what he’s accomplished.

Jonathan Lawrence Andrews: Ah, technical college. Um. I feel like I accomplished something that I didn’t think I could do. It put a smile on my mom’s face. It’s been a thrill. Like looking back two years ago, I couldn’t see this far. I knew what I wanted to do, but I didn’t know how I was going to achieve it. But right now, I know if I can do this right here, it’s more obstacles that can be accomplished. It’s only the beginning. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: Since we talked, Andrews has graduated from the welding program and is considering more training. 

He still has more than 20 years left on his sentence, but he hopes to make parole in a few years.

Andrews says part of his transformation has come from just being at Ingram State. The way people talk to him, the opportunities, the environment. 

Jonathan Lawrence Andrews: It helped my mind as, as being incarcerated. I don’t feel like I’m incarcerated when I’m over here. When I leave, that’s when reality kicks back in. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: The reality is that inside Alabama’s prison most men do not participate in religious, educational or training programs.

After the break, more on why that’s the case. And one former volunteer speaks out against a system he can no longer support. 

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

PART TWO

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

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

Since 2020, the pandemic has changed a lot inside Alabama’s prisons. For more than a year and a half, officials paused in person visitation and limited access to volunteers. 

Former corrections commissioner Jeff Dunn said specialized programs in faith-based dorms and community college classes were largely put on pause.

Jeff Dunn: We did have to shut all of that down initially and then as we worked our way through the pandemic, we have slowly begun to bring those, those folks back into our system. Started out on a very limited basis, and that's beginning to grow. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: Dunn said one positive change is that men now have “personal education devices,” basically tablets. Inmates can use them to access free educational content. They can also use them to make phone calls, send messages, listen to podcasts although they have to pay a fee for those things.

Prison officials say, with the tablets, they’re able to offer rehabilitative programming to more people in prison. 

But data show very few of the men in prison benefit from the programming that does exist. 

In 2021, a group of Alabama lawmakers and political appointees published a report about educational programming in state prisons. 

It says in general, fewer than 9 percent of inmates take community college classes each year. And it says in the past decade, retention rates for these programs have steadily declined. 

According to reports from the Alabama Department of Corrections, participation in many programs has plummeted over the past decade. 

In the years leading up to the pandemic alone, there was a 60% drop in the number of people in prison who took GED classes and participated in reentry programs.

I asked Jeff Dunn about this during a video call in Spring of 2021. He pointed to a few reasons for the decline. 

Jeff Dunn: As our system over the years has been under more and more stress, particularly within our facilities, the ability to deliver programs has become more of a challenge. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: In recent years, the department closed one prison and started to decommission another one. Dunn said the remaining facilities don’t have the space or the staff to offer programs. 

The former commissioner claimed that another challenge is a shift in the prison population. Compared to a decade ago, a higher percentage of the men in prison today are there for what the state considers to be violent crimes. 

Jeff Dunn: Well, that requires a much different security level and therefore increases the resources required to bring programing and bring education into those, into those areas. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: Dunn said because programs are optional many people choose not to participate. 

Jeff Dunn: So we spend a lot of time trying to encourage our inmate population to take advantage of those things that are, that are there. And so what we tend to see is a small portion of our inmate population wants to take every possible thing that we can offer, when what we would rather see is a much larger portion of our inmate, you know, being involved in something. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: Some states provide incentives for incarcerated people to participate in training and education programs.   

The Federal Bureau of Prisons requires most inmates in federal facilities to get a high school diploma or GED if they don’t have one.

Alabama doesn’t have that kind of program requirement. Incarcerated people don’t have to complete their GED or take classes and they’re not required to work. 

Some inmates say that they participate in programs in an attempt to increase their chance of getting paroled. However, in recent years, parole rates have dropped significantly taking away some of that motivation.

In 2021, state lawmakers did approve a law that allows inmates to receive up to a year off their sentence if they complete vocational or educational classes. But the law only applies to people convicted of non-violent crimes, so it excludes most people in Alabama’s prisons. 

Hasani Jennings: You’d be surprised how well people that are incarcerated do what’s expected of them to do while they are in prison. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: Hasani Jennings is 48 years old. He’s incarcerated at Limestone Correctional Facility in northern Alabama. 

For months, Jennings called me just about every Monday using the prison phone system. We’d talk in 15 minute spurts before getting cut off.

Jennings has been locked up for almost 30 years, serving life without parole for a capital murder conviction. 

He says he takes as many classes as he can. Jennings has participated in college lectures and art classes. He worked in the law library. He likes to meditate and read. 

But Jennings says that’s not the expectation for men inside prison. 

Hasani Jennings: You know they’re walking around here right now, or sitting around here right now, doing what the administration expects them to do. For the most part. You know, you got a lot of them over there, they watching TV or playing games. 

Securus: You have one minute left. 

Hasani Jennings: But that’s what’s expected. Nothing is expected of them. It’s not being, no pressure is being put on them to actually work with themselves. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: Jennings says if people inside prison are not required to participate in programs, many of them won’t. I’ve talked to men who criticize the programs, say they’re a waste of time. 

Jennings says for some men it’s intimidating. 

In Alabama, the average incarcerated person has a 10th grade education. About half of the prison population didn’t finish high school. 

Jennings says he’s met men who cannot read, who need motivation to get back in a classroom. 

Hasani Jennings: A lot of guys in prison that have really bad experiences in the public school systems growing up. And they don't feel empowered. They don't, they don't think they can, you know, learn and grow and use their minds in an academic way or even learn a new skill. They don't think they can. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: Jennings thinks transformation should not be optional. He says education, job training, character building, it should be the goal. 

Hasani Jennings: There needs to be more programming, and I believe that would change, and programming needs to be, and people changing for the better, needs to be the highest priority of the DOC, instead of where their priorities actually land right now. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: Kervin Jones, the pastor from Greensboro says when he was volunteering inside Bibb County Correctional Facility, he saw how different life can be outside of the dorms that are home to specialized programs. 

He says most guys in prison live with less structure, more chaos. 

Kervin Jones: Their lives are flipped. Through the day, most of the time they're on their rack asleep.  Most inmates sleep all day. In the programs they have some class or something to do all day. And we try to keep the dorm quiet so they can sleep at night. But outside of programs, my grandmother used to say, “An idle mind is the devil's playground.” So when you don't have anything to do, all you have to do is try to figure out a way to do something that's less than constructive.       

Mary Scott Hodgin: Bibb is one of the largest and most overcrowded prisons in Alabama.  One of its nicknames is “Bloody Bibb.” The month I visited there were 14 assaults and 21 fights among incarcerated people and one assault on a staff member. In one month. 

And this is the prison where Brandon Ladd was murdered. He’s the young man we talked about in our first episode.

So there is violence at Bibb. But prison officials say, for the most part, it’s not happening in dorms with specialized, faith-based programs..

Unidentified man in Facebook Video: Bibb County Correctional Facility

Mary Scott Hodgin: Cell phones are not allowed inside Alabama prisons. But they’re a common form of contraband. And some people use cell phones to access social media. 

This audio is from a video uploaded to a public Facebook page in August of 2021. The man who posted it says that he’s incarcerated at Bibb County Correctional Facility. 

Unidentified man in Facebook Video: There go a guy living on the floor, sleeping under the table.

Mary Scott Hodgin: We could not identify the man who posted this video. 

It shows a different dorm than the ones I toured during my visit. We see a man scrubbing his clothes in a mop bucket. Multiple men appear to be sleeping on the floor. Then the video turns to the bathroom. 

Unidentified man in Facebook Video: This toilet been stopped up for a whole month. They won’t even come fix it. This toilet been stopped up for about a week. They won’t even come fix it. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: In recent reports and lawsuit filings, U.S. Justice officials detail chaos inside Alabama dormitories that are “critically and dangerously understaffed.” 

Federal officials say drug use and drug trafficking contribute to rampant violence and sexual assault inside Alabama’s prisons. It also leads to more deaths. 

In the summer of 2021 , at Bibb County Correctional Facility, four men died in one month from suspected drug overdoses. 

Across the system, Federal officials describe men sleeping in dorms they’re not assigned to. Men holding others captive in the back of crowded dormitories. Men abused and assaulted. 

Former volunteer Kervin Jones says he often heard firsthand about the abuse. 

Kervin Jones: The first time I was chaplain, a young man came in. A young white kid came to my office and and just in tears, said to me “Somebody's raping me. I've reported it to the captain. I report that in all these places, nothing happening.” He said, “I'm all right at night, but through the day I just, I have to fight.” And he said, “Next time he try to do it. I’m going to kill him and I know I'll be in prison the rest of my life.” He had like a couple of weeks, a month left in prison. And so, for that, for that time period, I said, “Well, every morning when you go to breakfast, come up to the table, come up to the chapel and stay with me.”

Mary Scott Hodgin: We weren’t able to independently confirm this story.

Jones says it happened more than a decade ago and that he told prison staff about it  . 

Now, there are more systems in place to report sexual assault. 

Prison officials are required to document incidents and provide a free hotline for inmates to report a threat or an attack. These changes are required under a federal law called the Prison Rape Elimination Act.   

Kervin Jones has not been back inside an Alabama prison since that day I first met him at Bibb County Correctional Facility. 

Kervin Jones: I was working with Jump Start up until, well, the pandemic.

Mary Scott Hodgin: Jones has since separated from the program. He says inside prison, he saw things that make him uncomfortable. And recent events around the country encouraged him to speak out about it.

Kervin Jones: After George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery and all those folks, I'm not going to smile anymore. I’m going to say this is wrong. This is hurtful. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: Jones says he was frustrated when saw in the news that white inmates were being granted parole at more than double the rate of Black inmates. 

Kervin Jones: Having a dominant culture who's not the dominant culture in the prison system dominate who gets out of prison, not treating everybody fairly, I’m not just gonna smile and take it. No, that's not right. That's not right. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: Jones says participation in the programs he helped build inside prison could look good on parole applications.  And he says part of the problem starts there.

Kervin Jones: The DOJ is saying you got to do some stuff. Well, this church or this group is going to provide some programming. So the Department of Corrections will naturally latch on to it, but also, the program is colonizing.

Mary Scott Hodgin: Jones says when he volunteered at Bibb, most of the religious programs were Christian-based and most of the volunteers leading the programs were white.

Jones says he was one of just a few Black volunteers and he would actively recruit Black inmates to participate in the JumpStart program. He tried to keep it 50-50, where half participants were white and half were Black.

Kervin Jones: At least once a month, I would go around Bibb County, around the institution, recruiting men into the program. Telling Black men, “You need to come.” Take some of the Black men who were in the program with me and talk about the problem and say this will help you.

Mary Scott Hodgin: Jones says he saw the special faith-based programs attracting a higher percentage of white inmates. 

He says religious volunteers do good work. But he says the programs can be exclusive, not as welcoming to people of different backgrounds or beliefs.

I asked officials with the Alabama Department of Corrections about this. They say they don’t track the racial makeup in these dorms of inmates or volunteers. 

Recent data show there are programs available for people who practice other religions including Islam and Buddhism. But most of the religious services and classes and most of the people who attend them identify as Protestant. 

Jones says his faith calls on him to work with incarcerated people. He wants to share the gospel with no strings attached as an evangelist. 

To him, there is an important difference between evangelism and what he calls colonization. He says colonization comes with a reward, like providing men a safe, structured dorm.  

Kervin Jones: And I think a lot of volunteers go in with a colonization attitude. “We're going to start this program. We're going to colonize. Because if you stay in the program and say what we want you to say, the Department of Corrections is going to allow you in this program. You going to get these benefits. You going to live in this cleaner environment. But also, because you complete this program, when you come up for parole, you're more likely to be looked at favorably.” I don't know if they are aware of that, but that's what they're doing. And there's a difference between colonization and evangelism.

Mary Scott Hodgin: Despite his concerns, Kervin Jones wants to continue volunteering inside Alabama’s prisons. He’s tried to get permission to go back to volunteer on his own. 

But says since he separated from the JumpStart program, that permission hasn’t been granted. 

Prison officials would not comment on the situation. 

In fiscal year 2020, The Alabama Department of Corrections says it allocated about $16 million dollars for “inmate rehabilitation.” That’s a tiny fraction, just under 3 percent, of the annual corrections budget. 

That same year, the state also allocated around $13 and a half million dollars to fund correctional education, the community college programs like Ingram State.  

During our tour at Bibb County Correctional Facility, former prisons commissioner Jeff Dunn said resources are limited.

He said, as a result, the department relies “heavily on volunteers and third parties” to operate in-person classes and programs. 

Jeff Dunn: The point we’re trying to make is, is that investments in those programming environments actually end up requiring a lesser amount of official state’s security and it creates a more conducive environment for all the outcomes we’re trying to get, reducing recidivism and all that. That’s why this model is so important. So that’s why this model here is so efficient, because we have struggled with staffing for so long. And so we’re trying to take a little bit more of an innovative approach as we try to get our numbers where they need to be. 

Mary Scott Hodgin: According to historians and sociologists, rehabilitation was considered an important part of U.S. prison policy up until the mid-1970s. 

They say that’s when the idea took a backseat as the country adopted the “tough on crime” approach

And legally prisons are not obligated to educate or rehabilitate people. 

But today the term is back in favor. Rehabilitation is included in the Alabama prison system’s mission statement.

The state’s governor, Kay Ivey, brought it up several times during her 2020 state of the state speech. 

Kay Ivey: Analyzed many of the crucial components necessary to address the need to rehabilitate those who are within our prison system.

Mary Scott Hodgin: But the main point of Ivey’s speech was not about adding new programs or restructuring prisons. It was about building new ones. 

Kay Ivey: That’s why I’ve asked Commissioner Dunn to spearhead the efforts to build three new prisons that will transform or transition our facilities from warehousing inmates to rehabilitating people. [Applause]

Mary Scott Hodgin: We’ve asked multiple times for an interview with Governor Ivey. She has refused our requests.

Prison construction has been key for state leaders and prison officials. They say new buildings will provide the foundation to improve programming, medical care and security inside state prisons. 

In the discussion about rehabilitation, one thing people often bring up is recidivism. Tracking this data is complicated and estimates vary. But according to monthly reports from the Alabama Department of Corrections, 26 percent of people in state prisons had previously served time, been released and returned within three years.  

Studies show that education and job training help reduce rates of recidivism. People who participate are less likely to come back to prison after they get out. 

But former volunteer Kervin Jones says to really give men inside prison a second chance, they need more than classes. They need hope. 

Kervin Jones: And they just needed an opportunity to redeem their mistake. I say often. I'll say it again here. I would hate to be just for the rest of my life on the worst day of my life. And that's what we do with most of the guys, men and women who are incarcerated. For the worst day of their life. They got to live with it. Their life is gauged by the worst day of their lives and I would be somewhere hopeless.

Mary Scott Hodgin: Just like with sentencing reform, rehabilitation gets into the philosophical debate about prisons. 

We send some people to prison forever. And many states, including Alabama, continue to allow capital punishment. 

For the 95 percent of people who serve their time and leave prison, what’s waiting for them when they get out? 

Many people in prison have experienced trauma, abuse, neglect in the free world and while incarcerated. 

Many incarcerated people struggle with addiction. Some have serious mental illnesses. 

Inside prison, many people need treatment, therapy, medicine. 

Mary Abrams: If my son had got the proper care that he really needed, I believe Roderick would be living today.

Mary Scott Hodgin: In our next episode, learn more about another federal lawsuit against the state of Alabama, one that’s been going on for years, that focuses on the treatment of inmates with mental illness. 

Terra Griffin: Your heart goes out to just these men you know, and the stress that they’re in. Because at the end of the day, they’re humans. They’re human.

Mary Scott Hodgin: 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 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.