Vol. 80/No. 21 May 30, 2016
(front page)
Prisoners strike to protest abuse and little or no pay
in Alabama
“Conditions continue to get worse here," Melvin Ray, 45, told the Militant May 15 in a phone interview from one of Alabama’s state prisons. In addition to overcrowding and the unpaid labor prisoners are forced to perform, “the courts are not impartial, prisoners are brutalized, there’s a lack of funds for education and other programs, and the food is often not fit for human consumption," said Ray, a founder of the Free Alabama Movement, which initiated the protest. Prisoners formed the group in January 2014, when they organized their first strike.
Beginning May 1 prisoners at Holman, Staton and Elmore Correctional Facilities refused to leave their cells to work, from unpaid jobs serving food to “industry" jobs that pay from $.17 to $.30 an hour — the only paid jobs in the state’s prisons. Prisoners at St. Clair joined the action May 9.
At Holman, industry jobs include making Alabama state license plates and bedding for the prisons in the sewing factory. Elmore has a canning and recycling plant and St. Clair has a vehicle restoration and chemical plant.
The Alabama government legalized the use of prison labor by private, for-profit companies in 2012. “We are going to put our prisoners to work. They are going to be paid a reasonable wage," said state representative Jim McClendon, the bill’s sponsor, at the time. Since then, 17 different prison labor industries have been set up across the state.
Prisoners also routinely face fines and fees. “Our mass incarceration is a form of slavery, because we’re not being paid for our work, but we’re being charged outrageous fines," one prisoner told Solitary Watch, a website that publishes information about solitary confinement and its impact. Prisoners are charged $4 for armbands and identification cards, $31.50 for a urinalysis test and $200 to petition a court, the only way a prisoner can file a complaint.
Prisoners also are charged $25 for being caught with a cell phone the first time, with fines rising $25 for each further violation. Prison guards sell the phones to prisoners, who use them primarily to call their families, according to Solitary Watch. Its report also cited prisoners’ complaints about the water, which “looks like fog. You cannot drink it," one said.
The prisons where the strike occurred were put on lockdown after it started. Authorities also retaliated by cutting the size of meals, a practice inmates call “bird-feeding." “For the last 10 days we have been receiving well below a thousand calories per meal," prisoner Kinetik Justice, who is in solitary confinement in Holman Correctional Facility, told the radio program “Democracy Now."
Alabama spends only $26 a day per prisoner. The national average is $62, according to the Equal Justice Initiative. “It spends the least of any state on medical care for inmates," states an EJI fact sheet. “Unsafe prison conditions have given rise to lawsuits in which courts have found that crowding in state and local facilities is ‘barbaric.’"
“We have contact with women in Tutwiler women’s prison," Ray said. “They are subject to very harsh conditions. Many are supporting our protests, even though they didn’t participate directly."
“We have support from family members and some other groups in the community," Ray added. On May 7, a protest to support the strikers was held outside Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, sponsored by the Free Alabama Movement and The Ordinary People Society, which backs the prisoners’ fight. The support group Mothers and Families is planning a June 22 protest at Kelly Ingram Park in Birmingham to back the prisoners’ ongoing struggle.
The prisoners ended their strike May 13.
Related articles:
Gary Tyler, framed up in 1974, walks free from Louisiana prison
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