MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday delayed a vote on Gov. Robert Bentley’s prison construction push, pausing as lawmakers negotiated on a scaled-back bill to build two or three prisons instead of four.
“Not everybody is going to be happy. It’s too big of a complicated bill to make everybody happy, but I think you are going to have a product that most people agree they can support on the floor,” said Committee Chairman Cam Ward, R-Alabaster.
The committee will likely vote Thursday on a substitute plan to build a smaller number of prisons, Ward said. Bentley had originally proposed an $800 million bond issue to build four large regional prisons and close most existing facilities.
“We’re haggling now on that. My guess is three,” Ward said of the number of prisons to be built.
Tutwiler Prison for Women might not be replaced, under the scaled-down bill, and instead just be renovated. The state in 2015 agreed to make numerous physical and policy changes changes at the 75-year-old prison after the U.S. Justice Department said inmates were subjected to an unconstitutional environment of sexual abuse including that officers there coerced inmates into sex and watched them in showers. Tutwiler is the state’s only prison for women.
Ward said lawmakers also were likely jettisoning Bentley’s idea to use a single designer-builder for the project instead of bidding out different aspects of the project.
“The problem is we don’t use it here. It is unknown. There’s a lot of hesitation. There’s a lot of mistrust in government,” Ward said.
State prisons have come under criticism for overcrowding, understaffing and violence.
Alabama prisons house more than 23,000 inmates in facilities built for about 13,000. A corrections officer at William C. Holman Correctional Facility died after being stabbed last year. Three inmates have been killed so far this year in inmate-on-inmate violence.
Stacy George, a corrections officer and former county commissioner who ran against Bentley in the 2014 gubernatorial race, said Tuesday that staffing shortages are a bigger problem than the facilities in terms of prison safety. Corrections officer staffing has fallen by 20 percent, according to numbers from the Department of Corrections.
“We need more people right now,” George said. He came to watch the committee debate Tuesday.
Ward said he agreed that staffing was an issue
“You’ve got to find a way to enhance their pay,” Ward said.
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