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Alabama’s new 4,000-bed men’s prison in Elmore County will not be finished as early as expected. The completion date has moved from May 2026 to October 2026, as reported by Alabama Daily News. Sen. Greg Albritton, R-Atmore, chairman of the Alabama Senate’s General Fund committee, said the change came in an agreement between the state and the builders. Albritton said the state would bear no additional costs and that the builder would pay a penalty because of the delay. Albritton estimated the penalty is roughly $9 million. The Governor Kay Ivey Correctional Complex will be Alabama’s first new prison since the 1990s and will include facilities for medical and mental health care and for vocational education. The state is making plans for a second new 4,000-bed prison in Escambia County. Construction companies are due to respond to a request for qualifications by Nov. 26 on the second prison, which will be built next to the almost century-old Fountain Correctional Facility near Atmore. Ivey, who has spearheaded plans to build the prisons, along with Republican leaders in the Legislature, has called them a key part of fixing the state’s overcrowded and understaffed correctional system. Supporters of the new prisons say they will be safer for inmates and correctional officers and will provide better health care and rehabilitation. The new prisons come in response to decades-old problems that were highlighted this year in an HBO Max documentary, “The Alabama Solution,” a title taken from Ivey’s statements that the state intends to fix its prisons and not rely on federal intervention. The U.S. Department of Justice sued the Alabama Department of Corrections during the first Trump administration, alleging that the violent conditions in men’s prisons violate the constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. The state denies that. A Montgomery pastor who has a prison ministry told state lawmakers last month that the incarcerated men he sees are traumatized by what he described as a culture of drugs, extortion, rape, and despair. That followed family members of inmates telling similar stories at previous public hearings. Relatives of incarcerated men and advocates have encouraged people to watch the documentary. State officials have acknowledged there are problems. In 2023, the state substantially increased pay for correctional officers and is making progress toward addressing a severe staffing shortage, ADOC Commissioner John Hamm told the Legislature’s prison oversight committee in October. The ADOC also regularly reports efforts to crack down on contraband drugs and weapons, including arrests of correctional officers. In October 2021, the Legislature approved a $1.3 billion plan to build two 4,000-bed prisons - in Elmore and Escambia counties. The largest prison in Alabama, in Limestone County, has about 2,000 beds. The plan included $400 million in federal dollars from the American Rescue Plan Act, a coronavirus relief bill passed by Congress, $154 million from the state General Fund, and up to $785 million in bonds. But the cost of the Elmore prison rose sharply after an initial estimate of $623 million. and will consume most of those funds - about $1,25 billion to build and equip. Lawmakers are still working on assembling funds for the Escambia County prison. Albritton said the Legislature has set aside about $600 million for the project so far. The state can also issue bonds to help pay for the Escambia prison. It sold $509 million in bonds for the Elmore prison, not the full $785 million, allotment. Lawmakers passed a bill earlier this year to increase the bond maximum by another $500 million, up to $674 million. Officials have not given a cost estimate for the Escambia prison, although they have previously said they expect it to be less than the one in Elmore County, which will have more specialized facilities for medical and mental health care. “That’s still the hope and expectation,” Albritton said about the cost of the Escambia prison, although he said that is not certain. According to the request for qualifications (RFQ) the state issued in October, seeking responses from construction companies, design of the prison was about 65% complete. The firm Goodwyn Mills Cawood is doing the design, much of which is intended to be consistent with the new Elmore County prison. The RFQ says “time is of the essence” and says the work is to begin in 2026. Albritton said he hopes construction can begin by next summer. Overall, the senator said the state’s plans to build new prisons, which started and then faltered under former Gov. Robert Bentley almost a decade ago, is on track to be a success. “I don’t think most people have ever thought that we would have, A, stuck with this like we have, or B, have gotten as far down the road to completion as we ever have,” Albritton said. “So given the COVID, given the inflation, given the mistakes that were made and all the other obstacles, I think we’ve come along fairly well.” As of August, Alabama prisons held 21,803 inmates in facilities designed for 12,115. That includes 13 prisons for men, Tutwiler Prison for women and two smaller facilities for women, as well as minimum security work centers and work release centers. The state plans to close some of the older prisons when the new ones are finished.
