BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) – Former WBRC anchor Beth Shelburne worked as a producer on a new HBO documentary examining the serious problems within Alabama’s prison system, revealing that filmmakers’ research documented 1,377 people who died in state facilities during the six years of filming.
The Alabama Solution takes an uncomfortable look at conditions inside state correctional facilities, featuring stories from inmates who used smuggled cellphones to document conditions and investigating the 2019 death of inmate Steven Davis.
In an interview with former co-anchor Steve Crocker, Shelburne said she joined the project after directors Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman found her previous reporting on Alabama prisons and invited her to collaborate.
“After one afternoon of all of us talking, said, ‘you know, we’d really like to bring you on board this project.’ And it was a very easy yes,” Shelburne said.
Project origins
The documentary began when Jarecki visited Alabama with his teenage daughter to see memorials created by the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery. His daughter had read Anthony Ray Hinton’s book about being exonerated in 2015 after 30 years on death row.
During their visit, they met Chaplain Browder, the oldest prison chaplain in Alabama and the first Black chaplain allowed in state prisons. Browder invited Jarecki into a prison, leading to the opening scene of the documentary.
Prison reporting roots
Shelburne’s interest in Alabama prison stories began at WBRC in 2012 when 50 women at Tutwiler Correctional Facility filed a federal complaint alleging, they had been raped by correctional officers.
“I filed a story just on that federal complaint, and then the phone started ringing in the newsroom,” Shelburne said. “I took a few calls that night from women who had served time and Tutwiler who were calling to say, this is absolutely true. And then some.”
That initial story led to a year of reporting on conditions inside Alabama’s women’s prison before expanding to men’s facilities.
“I had never really thought about what happened after somebody is sentenced by a court and goes away. I thought that was the end of the story. And it turns out it’s not the end of the story,” Shelburne said.
Challenging public attitudes
The documentary addresses public indifference toward incarcerated individuals, including audio from a radio host saying, “It’s prison, it’s supposed to suck.”…