MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA – A new four-part investigative series by the Alabama Reflector reveals an alarming number of lawsuits against the Alabama Department of Corrections involving complaints of excessive force. Other lawsuits alleged wrongful deaths and accused ADOC staff of failing to protect incarcerated people from violence, including assaults and rapes. 

The series is scheduled to launch Monday, May 19. 

• Monday, May 19: The Alabama Department of Corrections has settled over 90 lawsuits alleging corrections officers used excessive force, costing the state millions of dollars.
• Tuesday, May 20: Even as the prison population has declined, use of force incidents in Alabama’s prisons have soared, and corrections officers involved have not only held on to jobs, but been promoted.
• Wednesday, May 21: The anatomy of one inmate’s allegations against a corrections officer, and the aftermath.
• Thursday, May 22: Who’s paying for these settlements? You are. Who’s getting the most money from this litigation? Attorneys defending corrections officers.

Reporter Beth Shelburne is available to discuss the investigation and its findings, which include: 

• Most of the complaints examined by Shelburne are handwritten and sent from prisons to federal courts through the U.S. mail. 
  • “I am requesting an emergency transfer before these officers kill me,” wrote one man from St. Clair Correctional Facility. 
  • “I am more afraid now than I ever have been since I was first incarcerated,” wrote another man from Holman Prison. 
  • “Don’t let these people kill me,” wrote another man from Donaldson Correctional Facility. “I’m scared for my life and that they will say I killed myself.” 
• Correctional experts told the Reflector that the sheer volume of excessive force cases ADOC is settling is significant.
  • In fact, the Reflector found, the cost of defending lawsuits against individual officers and larger, class-action cases against the entire department has pushed ADOC’s legal spending over $57 million since 2020. In the last five years, the department has spent over $17 million on the legal defense of accused officers and lawsuit settlements, along with over $39 million litigating a handful of complex cases against ADOC, including a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice over prison conditions. 
• An examination of court documents details harrowing accounts by prisoners, such as this passage from Part Three (names redacted for press release only):
  • In the deposition with ADOC attorneys, —— said he remembered blood pouring out of his nose while several officers hit and kicked him as he lay on the ground. The officers, —– said, shouted for him to get up, and —– grabbed him by his waistband and the back of his shirt, and slammed his body down on the wooden bench. —– said he knew then that he’d been badly injured. “I told them, ‘Please don’t hit me no more,’” —— recalled in his deposition. “My leg is broke.” He was unable to stand. —– said one officer suggested that he tell people he got hurt by falling out of his bunk. 

How this investigation was conducted: Veteran investigative reporter Beth Shelburne, working with editors from the Alabama Reflector, examined accounting data obtained from the Alabama Department of Finance detailing all payments made from the General Liability Trust Fund since 2020, as well as court records connected to the trust fund transactions. 

Alabama Reflector is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization. 

MEDIA AVAILABILITY: Reporter Beth Shelburne is available for interviews. To arrange, contact Lara Weber, States Newsroom communications director, [email protected] or 312-952-0788. 

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