Copyright AL.com
A Montgomery pastor who ministers in Alabama prisons told state lawmakers Wednesday that he sees incarcerated men who are traumatized by what he described as a culture of drugs, extortion, rape, and despair. “The punishment of taking away their freedom has already been rendered,” Robert White, pastor of the Montgomery City of Refuge, told the Legislature’s prison oversight committee. “We don’t have to subject them to torture. We don’t have to do that. We don’t have to subject them to the horrific conditions that they’re facing.” Dozens of family members of state inmates and advocates attended the prison oversight meeting, which followed the release of an HBO documentary that producers said exposes inhumane conditions inside Alabama prisons. “The Alabama Solution” features cell phone videos from inmates that show leaking sewage, rats captured in water bottles, inmates sleeping on the floors of overcrowded dorms, people overdosing without medical attention, blood scattered across tile floors and more. Tim Mathis, whose son Chase Mathis was killed in prison in June 2024, said every Alabamian should watch the documentary. “If they watch that show and it doesn’t touch them in a way through their heart, how these people are being treated, then there’s no hope for them,” said Mathis, who told the prison committee his son’s story last year. “It’s not going to do them any good. “At some point, everybody’s going to answer for what they did. You can also answer for what you didn’t do. My thing is, if you know there’s an issue like this going on, your duty as a human being is to stand up and say something about it. “You wouldn’t let somebody torture an animal. Why would you let them do it to a human?” Many of the inmates’ relatives and advocates at Wednesday’s meeting wore T-shirts that read “Alabama Department of Corruption.” After the meeting, which ended shortly after noon, they carried signs and chanted during a one-block march from the State House to the State Capitol. On the capitol steps, they joined death penalty opponents for what became a joint rally to protest prison conditions and the execution of Anthony Boyd, scheduled for Thursday night at Holman prison in Atmore. Colleen Howell of Oxford said her son went to prison because of crimes related to a drug addiction. She said his addiction got worse in prison, where she said easy access to drugs led to dangerous consequences. “It’s thrown in their face 20, 30, 40 times a day,” Howell said. “They walk up to you and say, ‘Hey, have some of this.’ At first it’s free, because they know you’re an addict. They get you hooked, and then pretty soon, they’re telling you you owe them $200, $300.” Howell said she got threatening calls demanding money while her son was in prison. “They start calling you on the illegal phones or have their family on the outside start calling you, saying, if you don’t give me $300 by such and such time, we’re gonna stab your son. We’re going to rape your son. We’re going to hold your son hostage.” Stories of drugs, violence, and corruption in Alabama prisons are not new. The U.S. Department of Justice sued the prison system during the first Trump administration, alleging conditions violate the Constitution. The prison system has acknowledged problems but has denied the constitutional violations. The case, filed in December 2020, is ongoing. Gov. Kay Ivey, the Legislature, and the ADOC have taken some steps, including increasing the pay of correctional officers to address a shortage of security staff that is an underlying problem. The state is building a 4,000-bed men’s prison in Elmore County that will have more than 700 beds for inmates with medical and mental health needs, as well as vocational training by the Alabama Community College System. White told the oversight committee that the prison system needs more ministry programs. He said he and other pastors want to offer information and suggestions for how to help inmates who are stuck in an environment that leaves them worse off when they leave prison. White said the incarcerated men need hope, and an important source of that is vocational training programs. “We want to come to not bring a criticism to the governor or to the commissioner, but we’re coming to bring light into a dark system that does not have to exist,” White said. “It doesn’t have to. “There are things that we can do with our programs, with our opportunities that we want to offer to really make their experience something that they can benefit and grow and learn from without compounding more punishment onto something that has already been adjudicated.” The oversight committee has shown that it will respond to concerns raised at the public hearings. In December 2023, people told lawmakers about being unable to get information about their loved ones after they were beaten, raped, hospitalized, or died in state custody. Legislation followed that established an ADOC constituent services program to provide information to family members. The ADOC reported at Wednesday’s meeting that constituent services responded to 2,336 inquires from July through September and resolved them in an average of two days and eight hours. White, in describing his visits to Easterling and Kilby prisons, said he sees exuberance in the faces of the incarcerated men when they are in the worship services, but “utter despair” when those sessions end. “Those guys got to go back to that same environment and they know it,” White said. White talked specifically about the trauma experienced by victims of sexual assault. “If I could pick one issue that we have to address, it’s the rape,” White said. “We’ve got to address the sexual assault. That destroys a man and it reduces him to that of an animal. “I don’t want to see us have to be held accountable with God for us allowing that to happen. So that’s why I’m calling pastor friends and calling everybody to offer a solution. “We definitely want to help make this system better. But something has got to happen.”
