Here is a guide to the sections on this page in the order they are presented: Mega-Prisons Under Construction; Nitrogen Gas Executions; Recent Prison Strikes in Alabama; In Conclusion; References.
This section is dedicated to brief updates and information on three developments that are important to the movement for more humane prisons in Alabama. The first two being ongoing and newer projects: the construction of two new mega-prisons and the use of nitrogen gas for the death penalty. And the last development is a short but important discussion of strikes in the past 10ish years to remind us that we have power to fight these injustices. There is a lot of strength and resistance in prisons that cannot be minimized and is essential to believing that we have the power to make change. All of these topics are tied to a health crisis because the State’s ability to control and end someone’s life through the legal means of incarceration is a direct attack on a person’s bodily autonomy and ability to have good health.
Mega-Prisons Under Construction
This video is an interview between the Real News Network and Pastor Kenneth Glasgow who is the founder of The Ordinary People Society. Mr. Glasglow discusses how problematic Alabama’s decision is to divert federal COVID-19 money, in one of the places with the highest rates, to support and grow prisons. Alabama’s politicians, democrats included, continuously have chosen to support slavery over community safety and freedom. As mentioned in the Introduction tab, Alabama is currently building two new mega-prisons and has used $400 million from the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act that was intended for COVID relief.1 This is a direct attack on the health of Alabamanians for both taking away money that intended to help with a pandemic and using it to create a new health crisis in Alabama, a mega-prison.
Nitrogen Gas Executions
Alabama is a state that regularly uses the death penalty, first documented in 1812. In the years between 1926-1976 there were 153 executions, 126 of these people were Black.2This is another example of how these prison practices have always been a way to legally kill and harm Black people. The death penalty is the most direct, public, and candid way that the prison industrial complex admit to health violence and murder.
This year, Alabama was the first state to use nitrogen gas executions for the death penalty. The video below is a news segment describing the first use of nitrogen gas against Kenneth Smith. In 2022, the state attempted to murder Smith but failed after an hour of trying trying to inject the needle. 3 Fast forward to 2024, and he was the first person to recieve the nitrogen gas mask, where he similarly was forced to endure a cruel and traumatic treatment. He struggled and squirmed for longer than the promised, and by the end of 2024 there had been 3 nitrogen gas executions, all having similar expirences.4
The state proves that it does not value the life and health of incarcerated people, and will weaponize their body for punishment. Nothing about health violence or murder is conducive to the rehabilitaion of a person. It is concerning that this practice of state-sanctioned murder is normalized.
An important factor of Alabama’s death penalty is that Holman Correctional Facility is where deathrow is housed in Alabama. IN 2020 Holman prison was found unfit to house people due to dilapidated and concerning conditions of the facility. 5 The prison was decomissioned and over 600 people were transferred, but Alabama decided that this housing was acceptable for some incarcerated people, including all people on deathrow. The facility had been found to be dangerous to live in, but again the government decides that the health and safety of incarcerated people does not matter.
The death penatly is the State’s most public practice of health violence and murder. This alone is enough to prove that the prison industrial complex runs on health violence and murder.
Recent Prison Strikes in Alabama
Prisons are notorious places of furthering social movements. The prisons are a political place where living necessitates resistance and organzing. Alabama prisons have a deep history of this, from Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail to the many prison strikes we have seen in the past decade. This is a very brief history from the past 9 years but there is so much more to all of these protests and to ones not documented here. Getting information about protests online can be hard which is another reason why being involved and knowlegable about your local movements and organizing is very important.
2016 Strike:
The video above is between the news network Democracy Now and co-founder of FAM Kinetik Justice. Calling in from solitary confinement, he Kinetik Justice talks about the 2016 prison stike across 3 men’s prisons in Alabama. The labor strike was in protest of poor living conditions, flave labor, and overcrowding. In retaliation to the labor strike, prison staff punished incarcerated people by birdfeeding. This is a strategy that gives people just enough food to survive.
2022 Strike:
This video above is between two people from prison refrom grassroots organization , Both Sides of the Wall. They discuss the 2022 strike where thousands of incarcerated people across the state stopped working for over 3 weeks. This strike was supposed to protest inhumane living conidtions, harsh sentencing, denial of parole, and the unconstiutional treatment in prisons.
2023 Strike:
In 2023 another stike was launched. On August 24, 2023 FAM wrote:
This is a post from August 24, 2023 from the Free Alabama Movement announcing another prison strike.
2024 Strike:
There was also a prison strike in Alabama in February of 2024 to protest inhumane conditions and shine a light on the stealing of incarecerated peoples organs when they died. It is a bit hard to find information on this protest but below is a link to an article discussing this protest.
In Conclusion…
One of the most important things to get from this website is the need to stay informed about what is happening in prisons. I focus on Alabama prisons because this is my home and a place with a deep history. The current practices of building more prisons and nitrogen gas executions show that Alabama politicians need more pressure and accountability. This ties in why I have included recent prison strikes in this section. Protest is an important strategy in achieving social justice. We should look within prisons to learn how to plug in and support the movement, they show us what resilence and hope is. While health violence is a direct attack and strategy employed by ADOC, this repression will never win. As Martin Luther King Jr. says in his Letter From A Birmingham Jail “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”
PRISONS ARE A PUBLIC HEALTH CRISIS: ALABAMA PAVES THE WAY 