HABITUAL OFFENDERS

“I knew I deserved to be in prison.

But I didn’t deserve to be in there that long or with that sentence.”

— Ron McKeithen, sentenced to life without parole under Alabama’s Habitual Felony Offender Act

Ron McKeithen’s record included a conviction of third-degree burglary, plus two felonies for illegal possession and fraudulent use of a credit card.

Then he and a friend stole a few hundred dollars from a convenience store.

It was 1983, a few years after Alabama passed a new law that mandated longer sentences for people convicted of multiple felonies.

The Habitual Felony Offender Act helped quadruple Alabama’s prison population by the early 2000s, and it kept Ron McKeithen behind bars for nearly 40 years.

Episode 3 of Deliberate Indifference traces the lasting impact of sentencing laws passed decades ago through the stories of the state’s “habitual offenders.”

“I cringe when people say, ‘Well, it costs so much to keep somebody in prison’ … What about a woman who is wrestled to the ground and raped? Think of the psychological and mental and emotional harm … So the cost of housing somebody is not going to be our priority, period.”

— Charlie Graddick, former Director of the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles and Alabama Attorney General