Report Says Alabama Authorities 'Frequently' Use Excessive Force On its Mostly Black Inmates & Fail to Protect Them from Violence & Sexual Abuse in 12 of its 13 Overcrowded, Barbaric Prisons

From [HERE] and [MORE] Federal investigators found "frequent uses of excessive force" on prisoners in 12 of the 13 state prisons under review, according to a report released Thursday, which cited "systemic unconstitutional conditions" throughout the prison system. 

The Justice Department has determined that Alabama's prisons are violating the Constitution by failing to protect inmates from violence and sexual abuse and by housing them in unsafe and overcrowded facilities, according to a scathing report. It is already known that Alabama’s Prisons are the Deadliest in US. [MORE]

The U.S. Department of Justice wrote Gov. Kay Ivey, Department of Corrections leaders and prison wardens about the report, the second the state has received in 15 months. 

"There is reasonable cause to believe that the correctional officers within the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) frequently use excessive force on prisoners housed throughout Alabama’s prisons for men," the Department of Justice wrote to Ivey. 

'Systemic unconstitutional conditions' [“rights are myths”]

Among the 13 prisons under review by the Department of Justice, all but one were flagged for "frequent uses of excessive force."

"Given the identified pervasiveness of the uses of excessive force and the statewide application of ADOC’s use of force policies and procedures, we have reasonable cause to believe that the uses of excessive force occurring within Alabama’s prisons give rise to systemic unconstitutional conditions," the letter read.

In its report, the DOJ said prison officials were aware of excessive force, including incidents in which prisoners were killed, but failed to address the issue. 

"We also found that ADOC failed to make and maintain proper records of excessive force incidents and that ADOC was unwilling to produce records that it did maintain. ... Throughout the investigation, ADOC also prohibited us from interviewing non-supervisory correctional officers and severely restricted our access to individuals working in prison health care units," the report said. 

In an investigation in November, the Montgomery Advertiser found prison administrators flout the department’s rules and regulations in an attempt to exert control and discipline prisoners. The newspaper interviewed dozens of men incarcerated across the state.  

"There are no meaningful checks and balances within the system, no substantial means of accountability on the part of certain correction officials; lower level as well as at the upper echelon levels," prisoner James Taylor said in a letter about conditions in 2019. "[Lack of accountability] is blatant. Inmates see it, know it, recognize it, and have grown tired of it, and this is why many inmates are resistant to entertain attempts at true change [or] reform."