County Commission | The Magazine January 2020 | Page 9

FROM THE COVER
T
Alabama’s Inmate Crisis
wo months in advance of the
2020 session, the Association of
County Commissions of Alabama
released “Alabama’s Unresolved
Inmate Crisis: A Report on the
Unintended Impact of the 2015
Prison Reform Act.”
This latest research publication
documents how Alabama’s 2015
prison reforms — and the subsequent
influx of State inmates in county jails
— have left their mark on county
commission budgets in every corner
of the state.
“As the legislative session nears,
counties must seek relief from these
growing costs,” said ACCA Executive
Director Sonny Brasfield, “because
the solution to the State’s prison
crisis cannot again be to push more
inmates down to the local level.”
Scope of the Crisis
From 2014 to 2018, the number
of State inmates in county jails
shot up 300 percent, from 2,000
to 8,000.
These 2014 and 2018 figures
give before-and-after snapshots of
the Prison Reform Act’s impact.
The act was intended to address an
overcrowding crisis in state facilities,
and, over the period studied, the
number of State inmates in state
facilities declined by 5,000.
The influx of 6,000 State
inmates has put incredible budget
pressure on counties. It is not
merely the cost of housing the
inmates; expenditures have soared
for medical care of prisoners.
Additionally, the number of jail-
related lawsuits against county
“Alabama’s County Governments
oppose any additional Sentencing
Reform Legislation before the
Alabama Legislature that would result
in additional diversion of inmates,
probationers or parolees into
Alabama’s county jails without full
reimbursement of all costs resulting
from such diversion...[and] call on
the Alabama Legislature to fully fund
the reforms of 2015 by providing
counties with the necessary revenue
to address the unfunded mandates
resulting from the 2015 Alabama
Prison Reform Act.”
— Association of County
Commissions of Alabama Resolution
August 22, 2019
COUNTY COMMISSION | 9