Alabama asks federal government if COVID funds can be used for prisons
Alabama asks federal officials if COVID-19 recovery funds can be used to improve state prisons with “better, improved and / or expanded infrastructure.”
The Montgomery Advertise r reports that Corrections Commissioner Jeff Dunn sent a letter to the US Treasury Department asking the question. Dunn presented the demand as improved health care and programs for inmates. Lawmakers have already said they want to know if pandemic recovery funds can be used for prison construction and renovation. The question arose after Governor Kay Ivey’s plan to rent out prisons collapsed due to funding issues.
“The average age of ADOC’s facilities is over 43, and although many have grown in size, most have, in the past, exceeded original design capacity,” the letter said. “For this reason, care and programming space for medical and mental health care is limited in many ADOC facilities.”
Dunn’s letter said prison upgrades would comply with federal rule guidelines that money, while financially helping households and businesses, can help “with systemic public health and economic challenges that may have. contributed to more severe impacts of the pandemic among low-income communities and people of color.
Dunn wrote that almost all prisoners are considered destitute and more than half are “people of color.”
“These disadvantages were further exacerbated by the community living situation,” he wrote.
The letter says the prison system could use the money to increase prison space for health care staff and programming, and expand broadband to provide more distance learning.
Last year, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Alabama for conditions in state prisons, claiming the state did not protect male inmates from inter-inmate violence and excessive force from the prison. share of prison staff.
The lawsuit alleges that conditions in the prison system are so bad that they violate the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment and that state officials are “deliberately indifferent” to the issues. The state disputes the allegations of the Ministry of Justice.
