Report: At least 277 people died in Alabama prisons in 2024

A report published Wednesday by the ACLU of Alabama estimated at least 277 people died in Alabama prisons last year.

That number matches the figure provided by the Alabama Department of Corrections and is lower than the 325 deaths tabulated by Alabama Appleseed in 2023, but the number of deaths has yet to meaningfully decline in the past few years despite efforts by the ADOC to secure the population and prevent corrections officers from transporting contraband into the facilities.

“It is high,” said Eddie Burkhalter, a researcher for Alabama Appleseed, a nonprofit that advocates for criminal justice reform.

A message was sent to the Alabama Department of Corrections on Wednesday seeking comment.

The ACLU said in the report that the number is likely higher because the ADOC has failed to maintain accurate records.

“While the raw number was larger (325) in fiscal year 2023, we are not seeing dramatic improvements by any means in Alabama’s prisons,” said Alison Mollman in an interview Wednesday, interim legal director of the ACLU of Alabama.

The report said the largest number of deaths (46) were the result of accidental deaths or overdoses.

The report cites corrections officers as a contributing factor for the number of deaths, particularly the deaths of overdose.

“In 2019, ADOC’s own staff members reported to the DOJ that “without a doubt” the number one way contraband is getting into prisons is by staff smuggling it in,” the report states, adding that the problem remains despite “continued notice of the central role staff play in trafficking drugs into ADOC facilities.”

The overdose number will likely be revised upward because 105 people died in prison whose cause is unknown, or the cases are still under investigation.

“It is really overdoses that are driving these death numbers,” said Burkhalter, who researches prison deaths. “Drugs continue to come in the prisons, largely in part because of officers who bring them in and staff who bring them in.”

Another 77 people died because of natural causes, though the specific causes are not known.

The report estimated that there were at least 36 deaths in Kilby Correctional Facility In Montgomery; 35 deaths at St. Clair Correctional Facility in Saint Clair County; 34 deaths at Limestone Correctional Facility in Limestone County and 26 deaths at Bullock Correctional Facility in Union Springs. The four combined accounted for nearly half of all the deaths (47%) that occurred in 2024.

ACLU also cited racial disparities in the report. While 26% of the population in Alabama is Black, Black Alabamians comprise almost 60% of the state’s prison population and account for an equal number of the deaths that happened in 2024.

“Alabama’s prisons are sites of torture,” said Allison Mollman, executive director of the ACLU of Alabama. “When people are convicted and sentenced to prison, their punishment is to be taken away from their families and communities. But the punishment they experience from the state of Alabama is widespread drug use, constant violence, both at the hands of other prisoners and staff, and widespread misconduct.”

People incarcerated in Alabama’s prisons continue to face deadly and dangerous conditions more than four years after the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit and publicized scathing findings about the conditions in some of the facilities.

A team of researchers from both the state and national ACLU offices compiled data from publicly available sources, including news articles and obituaries, as well as state and federal court records and reports by nonprofits and academic papers.

They also obtained information by filing records requests with government agencies and taking numbers posted on the Corrections Department’s website.

The report recommends improved tracking of deaths and study of the factors leading to them.

“To understand and respond to the problem, we have to understand the breadth of the problem, so it is our position that the first step, and an easy step for DOC to take, is to increase the transparency, the frequency, at which it is giving the public information,” Mollman said.

Other recommendations include updating the categories that indicate the manner of death, require autopsies for every person who dies while in the Department’s custody and provide an annual report on the deaths that happened for the year.

Mollman also said the ADOC needs to change the culture within the department by changing the leadership at the warden level. Current practice is that wardens obtain their post by working up the ranks of the department, starting as corrections officers. Other states have hired people as wardens who come from different backgrounds, such as social workers.

“Punishment is where the Department of Corrections is focused on, keeping people in segregation, locking them down in their cells, keeping them in dorms without air conditioning and without supervision,” Mollman said. “If we can move from a system to focus on rehabilitation truly, that has the programming, has the incentives for incarcerated people to do well, if we have a parole system that responds to that by granting people parole who are doing well in prison, those are the types of things that change culture and improve conditions and reduce levels of violence.”