Finally some sense is coming out of the Alabama Department of Corrections. For far too long in this state, the method of operation was simply locking up inmates and throwing away the key to protect a ‘tough-on-crime’ image.Pretty soon, though, the numbers of inmates swelled larger than the bed space available, and even building more prisons hasn’t been able to stem this prisoner tidal wave that has filled them to overflowing.
But newly appointed Corrections Commissioner Richard Allen is emerging with answers in his first few months at the helm of a troubled system. And they actually make sense.
Shortage of guards? Allen is answering with recruiting through the National Guard.
Soaring health care costs? Allen is responding with establishing the department’s own clinical staff, which is more cost effective than contracting outside services.
Lack of education or training? Allen proposes education and transition centers that include joining with the community college system to help inmates return to society with a job skill.
Within five years, he hopes to reduce the prison population by 3,000, a significant feat for a system that has been held in judicial contempt for failing to meet even the most basic standards for alleviating overcrowding.
Allen is looking well beyond the short-term fixes of adding beds and facilities, and he is taking the system in a new, sensible direction.
There are alternatives outside the usual slam of a cell door. The prison concept was meant to rehabilitate. But in real life, that has not happened in convincing numbers.
Thinking outside the cell has a real chance of turning it all around, and the state ought to be encouraged that its prison chief is doing precisely that.
