Gov. Kay Ivey has signed a lease for two new mega-prisons with a private prison company.
CoreCivic is one of the largest private prison companies in the country and agreed to build two new prisons. A third is planned for a total cost of $3 billion. The first two will house 7,000 inmates.
The deal was signed in spite of President Joe Biden's order to eleminate federal private prisons. But CoreCivic will not be running the prisons, only owning them. The state Department of Corrections will run and staff the prisons.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama said in a letter that the plan will not address prison violence and staffing shortages in the system.
