By Mike Cason
www.al.com

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — Alabama spends less on prison care than most other southeastern states, even though the state pays significantly more per prisoner than it did a few years ago.

At a budget hearing this week, Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Hamm showed lawmakers a chart that ranked Alabama fifth out of nine southeastern states with an average cost of $83 per day.

North Carolina spent the most on prisoners at $173 per day, followed by a large drop to Florida, which came in second at $114, followed by Tennessee ($107), South Carolina ($105) and Kentucky ($98).

The three states with lower average daily costs than Alabama were Georgia ($82), Louisiana ($69) and Mississippi ($65).

Hamm released the figures, which are from fiscal year 2021, during an informal hearing Tuesday with members of the House and Senate Budget Committees.

Hamm pointed out the consequences of spending less than most other states. The US Department of Justice has sued Alabama about the violent conditions in the understaffed, overcrowded and ageing prisons. And Alabama is also dealing with a decade-old legal battle over mental health care for inmates, a case that resulted in a federal court ruling for the state to hire 2,000 additional prison officers, By July 2025, the workforce will essentially double.

“If we continue to spend less, will we continue to have systematic litigation and other problems? Or do we spend more? That’s all we have. There are two schools of thought on that,” Hamm said.

The fact that Alabama has low spending on prisons compared to other states is not a new development. According to a 2015 report by the Vera Institute, Alabama spent $14,780 per prisoner per year, less than any other state. The national average at the time was about $33,000 per prisoner.

In another chart, Hamm showed that the daily cost of housing inmates in Alabama has increased 21% in four years, from $72 in fiscal year 2020 to a projected $87 in fiscal year 2024.

Medical costs for inmates and salaries for security personnel were the biggest factors in the increase, as shown in the graph. The ADOC signed a $1 billion four-and-a-half-year contract with a medical service provider last year. The ADOC increased the salaries of correctional officers last year, Increasing the starting salary to $50,000 and more, as part of efforts to recruit and retain more security personnel. Here is a link to Hamm’s presentation.

Sen. Greg Albritton, R-Atmore, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, cited figures showing that ADOC’s budget, including federal funds, increased 34% from 2019 to 2023, from $548 million to $732 million. That increase is not the result of housing more inmates, Albritton noted. The prison population has remained relatively stable in recent years, hovering around 20,000 to 21,000.

“We don’t expect there to be a decline here because the number of inmates and others will continue to rise,” Albritton said. “Is that a fair statement?”

“That’s a fair statement,” said Hamm.

Hamm told lawmakers that the ADOC has not yet finalized its budget request for next year. The legislative session begins in February.

Albritton, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, pointed out that in addition to rising operating costs, the ADOC also needs funds for construction. Lawmakers have approved money for a 4,000-bed specialty prison in Elmore County, scheduled for completion in May 2026. The project costs $1.25 billion. However, a second 4,000-bed prison in Escambia County is not yet fully funded and construction has not begun.

Since Alabama began discussing plans to build new prisons nearly a decade ago, there have been rumors that modern prisons could get by with fewer correctional officers than Alabama’s older prisons. The new prisons will be mostly cellular, as opposed to the older dormitory-style prisons.

But Hamm said he wanted to dispel any misconception that the state could save money by downsizing its correctional staff through newer prisons, pointing to the federal court order that essentially requires the ADOC to double its staff.

“We will proceed as efficiently, professionally and constitutionally as possible,” Hamm told the lawmakers. “Whatever you attribute to the Justice Department, we will do it within the scope of those possibilities. But we cannot control outside forces. We can only control ourselves. We cannot control the courts.”

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