By Mike Cason
The ACLU of Alabama has released its third annual “Statehouse to Prison Pipeline Report,” which says the Legislature focuses too much on criminal punishment and not enough on issues that could help families prosper.
“Alabamians deserve a legislature that passes bills to fund our public schools, expand access to quality healthcare, and improve their lives. Not a legislature focused on funneling them into overcrowded and deadly prisons,” ACLU of Alabama Executive Director JaTaune Bosby Gilchrist said in a news release about the report.
The ACLU of Alabama is a longtime critic of the state’s criminal justice policies, including the low rate of paroles granted by the Board of Pardons and Paroles, sentencing laws, and factors affecting a prison system that the federal government says violates the constitution because of the violence and other problems.
In this year’s report, the ACLU of Alabama categorized 141 of 876 bills introduced by the Legislature as “prison pipeline” bills. They were bills that increased criminal penalties, increased prison spending, relied on unsubstantiated reform efforts, developed protections or privileges for police, targeted or more acutely impacted economically insecure people, or met certain other criteria, the report said.
The first bill mentioned is SB143, which specifies how a person can be identified as a member of a criminal enterprise, or gang, and imposes enhanced criminal sentences for criminal enterprise members, as well as minimum prison terms for crimes committed with a gun on behalf of a criminal enterprise.
The ACLU said the law will allow prosecutors to define people as gang members based on how they dress, who they spend time with, and how others perceive them.
“Fraternities and sororities have all the signs of a gang: style of dress, hand signs, and other common identifiers,” the report says. “When we criminalize a group of people considered a ‘gang,’ what are we really saying? What do they ‘look’ like?”
Attorney General Steve Marshall supported the bill to help fight violent crime and property crime related to gangs. Marshall noted that Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin had cited gang violence during a wave of deadly shootings in September 2022.
Other bills that passed that the ACLU of Alabama put in the “prison pipeline” category included HB24, which imposes possible jail time for a second violation of loitering; SB1, to decrease the amount of “good time,” prisoners can receive to shorten their sentences; and HB131, to prohibit inmates from being considered for parole if they have new criminal charges pending.
The “good time” bill was named after former Bibb County Deputy Brad Johnson, who was fatally shot in June 2022 while in pursuit of a suspect in a stolen car. The man charged in Johnson’s death, has a long criminal record but had accumulated more than 2,000 days of good time while incarcerated, the Associated Press reported.
The report lists HB209, which would have made it a crime to help people obtain an absentee ballot application, with some exceptions, was listed as a “prison pipeline” bill in the report. HB209 did not pass but this year but a similar bill, by Sen. Garlan Gudger, R-Cullman, has been pre-filed for next year and has nine Republican co-sponsors.
“This bill would make it harder for absentee voters to seek assistance and cast ballots,” the report says. “The bill would also criminalize someone for accepting gas money or other compensation for delivering an absentee ballot to the post office.”
Supporters of the bill have said the purpose is to reduce the opportunities for voter fraud.
The “prison pipeline” report says the Legislature missed opportunities on what it categorized as positive bills.
One such bill, HB14, would have required a unanimous decision by a jury to impose the death sentence during the sentencing phase of a trial on a capital offense. Current law requires at least 10 of 12 jurors for a death sentence. Florida is the only other state that does not require a unanimous jury for a death sentence, the report says.
HB16, another bill the report categorized as a positive bill, HB16, would have created a criminal Justice Policy Development Council to set new guidelines for the Pardons and Paroles Board.
Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, sponsor of the two bills, has pre-filed similar bills for next year’s session.
