Autauga County Sheriff Evacuates County Jail Over Security Concerns

Thursday morning, Autauga County Sheriff Mark Harell announced in a press release posted on the Autauga County Sheriff's Department Facebook page that he had evacuated the Autauga County Metropolitan Jail. The inmates were transferred to an unidentified facility where the sheriff's department had “worked out logistics with multiple agencies.”

The press release was also vague about the reasons Harell gave, pointing only to non-specific potential health risks to the prison's inmates, which Harell deemed unacceptable. “I have a moral obligation to the safety, health and security of all individuals who pass through the doors of the Autauga County Metropolitan Jail, whether they be my staff, the officers assigned to the law enforcement or detainees,” Harell wrote.

However, reporters at the Elmore-Autauga News were able to confirm that the main problem was black mold.

Harell also said in his statement that the Autauga County Commission must act: “It will be up to the County Commission to properly and adequately address issues to prevent health and safety issues before I, as sheriff of Autauga County, does not place another one. individual in prison.

All media inquiries sent to the sheriff's office were redirected to the county commission.

In a written statement, Autauga County Administrator Scott Kramer said “the County Commission is aware of some issues related to facilities at the Autauga County Metropolitan Jail.”

“We have worked diligently and in good faith with Sheriff Harrell and his team to address their important concerns,” Kramer said. “We will continue to do so and ask him and his team to do the same.”

Although it seems likely that conditions at the Autauga County Metropolitan Jail could be improved in the coming weeks and months thanks to Harell's actions, Alabama's jails and prisons have been widely criticized for years.

In 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice sued the state, claiming that “Alabama fails to provide adequate protection against prisoner-on-prisoner violence and prisoner-on-prisoner sexual abuse, fails to provide conditions safe and sanitary conditions and subjects prisoners to excessive conditions. force in the hands of prison staff.

Alabama also had the 11th highest incarceration rate in the United States in 2022, with 390 incarcerated people per 100,000 state residents, just under 10% higher than the national rate. Parole rates have also declined significantly in recent years, leading more people to serve their full sentences.

Reforms intended to reduce Alabama's incarceration rate and ease the burden on the state's prisons, such as allowing judges to issue split sentences, have consistently failed in the state legislature. Instead, the focus has been on building so-called “mega-prisons,” complexes that cost hundreds of millions of dollars and could house thousands of prisoners.

In 2020, Governor Ivey prefaced the announcement of developers working on mega-prisons by stating that “we must rebuild Alabama's correctional system from the ground up to improve the safety of correctional staff and the prison population of our state.”

But without significant reform, and with mega-prisons still far from a solution, Alabama prisoners continue to report rampant disease, inadequate medical care, cruel treatment by prison staff and crumbling infrastructure.