According to information acquired by Alabama Appleseed, the number of deaths reported in the Alabama Department of Corrections in 2023 was at least 325, which is the highest recorded figure.
“In the weeks after we started tracking prison deaths starting January 1 of last year, we quickly realized we’d very likely see another record year of deaths, and we were correct,” Eddie Burkhalter, a researcher with Alabama Appleseed, said.
Burkhalter’s report reveals that since 2019, there has been a significant increase in the number of deaths in Alabama prisons. This was discovered during a Department of Justice investigation, which concluded that the state’s prisons were unconstitutional. As a result, the DOJ filed a lawsuit against Alabama in 2020, and the case is scheduled to start in November 2024. This alarming trend of over 1,000 deaths in ADOC facilities highlights various problems, such as rampant violence and drug use, which are often linked to the failure of correctional officers to fulfill their duty of maintaining order.