Alabama lawmakers are seeking to borrow additional money for prison construction to ensure the state can build a second 4,000-bed prison. The proposal comes after the price of the state’s new mega-prison rose to over $1 billion.
State officials are also advancing a bill to put oversight on the state’s parole board that has garnered national attention for low parole rates. The House Judiciary Committee approved the bill by Rep. Chris England, a Democrat from Tuscaloosa. The bill now moves to the full Alabama House of Representatives.
The bill would create the Criminal Justice Policy Development Council to oversee the development of guidelines for release on parole. The three board members would continue to decide whether inmates are paroled. However, the board would be required to provide a written explanation when a decision deviates from the guidelines.
“I think it’s a recognition that the current Parole Board and the process itself is broken,” England said after the committee vote.
Alabama’s parole rate has plummeted over recent years. The percentage of inmates being granted parole after their hearing fell from 53% in 2018 to a historic low of 8% in 2023. The rate rose back to about 20% in 2024.
The bill advanced in the wake of an October meeting when Alabama lawmakers sharply questioned the head of the state parole board about their low release rates and why lawmakers had not received information they requested months ago from the board.
Additionally, Alabama lawmakers are seeking the ability to borrow an additional $500 million for prison construction after the price of the state’s new mega-prison rose to over $1 billion, complicating plans to build a second behemoth facility.
The Senate Finance and Taxation Committee-General Fund on Wednesday advanced legislation that would raise the maximum amount of bonds that may be issued by the Alabama Corrections Institution Finance Authority from $785 million to $1.285 billion.
Republican Sen. Greg Albritton, the bill sponsor, said the ability to borrow the additional money will ensure the state can complete a second 4,000-bed prison in Escambia County in addition to one now under construction in Elmore County.
The bill now moves to the full Alabama Senate.
“With this flexibility, we will have enough to achieve what we set out to do: Build two prisons and have them operational,” Albritton said.
The Alabama Legislature in 2021 approved a $1.3 billion prison construction plan to build two supersized prisons and renovate others as a partial solution to the problems in its violent and overcrowded prison system.
However, the cost of building one prison, and the medical and mental health facilities that accompany it, rose to more than $1 billion, jeopardizing plans to build the second facility.
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