County Commission | The Magazine October 2017 | Page 35

FROM THE COVER
rehabilitation services within
the state prison system as a tool
to reduce recidivism. Education
programs today include GEDs,
vocational certificates and Second
Chance Pell Grants that allow
offenders to take courses for
college credit.
“The goal here is to give inmates
an opportunity – some tools in
their toolkit – so when they go
out into society after leaving us
they don’t come back,” said Dunn,
who has been on the job since
April 2015. “That’s the whole goal:
that they can be productive and
successful citizens.”
Inmates are also training to
contribute to their communities
inside prison walls. Graduates of
the seminary program at one men’s
facility will serve in ministry and
counseling roles. Another program
began this year to train women
as doulas so they can support
incarcerated expectant moms.
Through the course of Dunn’s
presentation, there was little
mention of one long-standing
county priority: the timely transfer
of state inmates out of county jails
and into state facilities. According
to DOC’s July 2017 statistical
report, the total population of
state inmates in county jails was
2,169. Within that group, 125 were
awaiting transfer from a county jail
to a state facility. A little less than
half of those individuals had been
awaiting transfer for more than
30 days.
Probationers and parolees
can be subject to a pair of new
disciplinary sanctions, the “dips”
and “dunks.” A dip is a two- or
three-day stay in a county jail. In
more serious cases, a dunk is up to
45 days of confinement that begins
in a county
jail before the
offender is
transferred to a
state facility.
“The use
of dips over
this last year
has increased
significantly
throughout the
state,” Barnes
said. “We
actually piloted
the dip policy
in a certain few
locations, and
now we’ve rolled
it out statewide
and we are
seeing it increase
as officers
become more
comfortable
using that.”
Barnes did note that with
dips and dunks, the 2015 law
gave sheriffs the ability to refuse
admittance in situations where
the offender has a serious medical
condition, the offender poses a
security risk or the jail is at, near or
over capacity.
As can be expected with
comprehensive reforms,
implementation continues more
than two years after Alabama’s
Justice Reinvestment Act became
law. In 2017, Pardons and Paroles
has been heavily involved in getting
an expanded victim notification
system fully operational.
By design, there are fewer lower-
level offenders inside the state’s
prisons. “The composition of our
population is changing, and we
need to change with it,” Dunn said.
The construction question is
unanswered, with deteriorating
buildings running at 167 percent
of designed capacity. Debate over
prison facilities – which ones to close,
where and how to build new ones –
has oftentimes overshadowed bigger
issues, he said, naming staffing as the
agency’s No. 1 challenge.
Beyond 2015’s reforms, DOC
is also working to address a recent
federal judge’s finding that inmate
mental healthcare is inadequate.
However, there is evidence of
positive momentum, and Dunn said
he is “more optimistic than ever
before” because of Gov. Kay Ivey’s
leadership. All appropriate options
are on the table, she says, describing
it as an Alabama problem that
needs an Alabama solution.
Taking all these factors
together, more changes are coming.
We’ve go to “prepare ourselves for
our future, and that’s bigger than
whether we have new buildings
or not.” n
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