Saturday Status: Prisons

One third--33.2%-- of Alabama's prison inmates serve their entire prison sentence and then are released to the community. Without any supervision.**
So finds a PEW study.

Alabama prisons are so overcrowded there is a possibility the Federal Government may take them over. Again.

Alabama’s prisons were built to hold 14,000 prisoners. Today, they hold 28,000. The state faces an overcrowding crisis created by the tremendous increase in the number of people sent to prison in the last 25 years.
Alabama spends only $26 a day per prisoner; the national average is $62. It spends the least of any state in the country on medical care for inmates. Alabama’s prisons have the highest inmate to correctional officer ratio in the country. Many have waiting lists for solitary confinement. Unsafe prison conditions have given rise to lawsuits in which courts have found that crowding in state and local facilities is “barbaric.”*

                                      *From The Equal Justice Initiative




** by comparison:  Oregon-- 0.4%
                               Georgia-- 19.2%
                              Mississippi-- 17.9%
                              Tennessee-- 30.7%
                              Florida-- 64.3%

[Saturday Status is a regular feature of www.timlennox.com]