Ahead of the 2024 legislative session, bills addressing criminal justice and public safety are dominating the docket of pre-filed legislation by Alabama lawmakers.

Eyes have been on the state for years as the Department of Justice investigates alleged inhumane living conditions, violence and abuse in prisons. The state’s corrections department has also been under scrutiny over its execution protocols and Alabama Department of Corrections is now planning to perform a nitrogen gas execution for the first time in January.

“We’ve heard some gut wrenching stories about failures within our system,” Democrat State Rep. Chris England of Tuscaloosa said. “I hope that we can put some of this creativity that we apparently have for executions at work when we try to figure out how to deal with all the issues that have so far been identified here that up until this point we have no have not had an answer for.”

“And I would even venture to say that since the Department of Justice, and the federal court system and so forth, have all notified us of how bad our prison system is. We’ve actually gotten worse.”

England has pre-filed a number of criminal justice reform bills, as he’s done in previous sessions. Such bills have not been successful in the Republican-dominated legislature.

Many of England’s proposals aim to help minimize the state’s prison populations.

One bill, HB 27, would allow a defendant to be resentenced if a judge imposed a sentence that was different than the jury’s advisory sentence. Essentially, if approved, the bill would allow anyone sentenced under those circumstances prior to 2017— when in capital murder cases, a jury’s advisory sentence was not binding— to be resentenced.

Another of England’s proposals aim to increase parole rates of inmates.

Alabama has also been criticized for its low parole rates. An estimated 90 percent of parole-eligible applicants are denied each year.

Attorney General Steve Marshall has previously backed the parole rates in Alabama.

“You cannot have a legitimate debate about parole rates without understanding that 80 percent of Alabama’s prison population are violent criminals,” he said in a Feburary 2022 statement. “Since 2015, near-annual changes to our sentencing and incarceration laws have ensured that dangerous offenders are largely the only ones left behind bars. As a result, we should absolutely expect and demand that parole rates decline.”

A December 2022 ADOC report indicates that 67.5 percent of its jurisdictional population were violent offenders.

Lauren Faraino, an attorney and director of the Woods Foundation — a nonprofit that monitors prison conditions and provides services to inmates with excessive sentences — said the group filed a lawsuit challenging inmate labor, which she implied is driven by the low parole rates.

“For individuals who are in the prison system, if they either refuse to work or need to take time away from work even for an illness, they are threatened with punishment, losing their good time and being put back behind the wall if they’re at a work release center,” Faraino said.

Some inmates are working fast food or for private entities, while others are in various roles inside of DOC facilities, including as unpaid correctional officers to fill the position’s vacancies, she said. However, despite their responsible behaviors in their working roles, they are most often denied parole, Faraino said.

“Parole applicants who are low-risk are less likely to be paroled than medium-risk applicants,” she said. “Why? One has to wonder if it’s because those low risk individuals are driving Alabama’s economy.”

The three-member Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles use its parole release guidelines as an aid when making determinations on whether to grant parole. However, the board is not required to follow those guidelines.

England has also filed HB 30, which would create a Criminal Justice Policy Development Council to oversee the development and implementation of validated risk and needs assessments for offenders, parole guidelines and classification guidelines of inmates.

The bill would require the Board of Pardons and Paroles to use parole release guidelines created by the Criminal Justice Policy Development Council in its parole decisions.

The proposal was introduced last session, but did not make it to committee for a vote.

Lawmakers did, however, pass a bill that increases the amount of time a prisoner must spend in a certain classification before he or she can move up in classification for good behavior.

Cindy Hamilton spoke Dec. 13 to the Joint Legislative Prison Oversight Committee about how the new law has affected her and her son, who is an inmate at an ADOC facility.

He was expected to enter an end-of-sentence program in April but had his “good time” revoked six weeks after the law went into effect. She said her son was written up for assault after defending himself during an attack. He is now set be released in 2035.

“My son has been mentally and physically tortured for four years. and in January of this year, corrupt officers were given the authority to punish and take good time away,” Hamilton said.

“What the state is allowing to happen is animalistic. This is my son. and it’s not just him.”

ADOC officials did not speak at the prison oversight committee meeting and declined to comment on concerns regarding its facilities.

Other bills filed by England seeks to allow those considered “habitual offenders,” or those who given enhanced sentences due to prior felony convictions, to be resentenced in certain circumstances. Another of his pre-filed bills would authorize the court clerk to accept a cash deposit less than the total ordered by the judge, with approval of that judge.

In terms of public safety, Rep. Chris Pringle, R-Mobile, filed HB 10 which would charge a person who sells or distributes a controlled substance containing any amount of fentanyl with manslaughter if a death results from the use of the controlled substance.

Distribution under Alabama law is considered selling, furnishing, giving away or delivering illegal drugs. Manslaughter convictions come with as many as 20 years in prison.

Alabama lawmakers are scheduled to start the 2024 legislative session Feb. 6.

Other notable bills filed so far include:

Education

HB 25 filed by Rep. Jeremy Gray, D-Opelika. would allow high school student athletes to receive compensation for the use of their name, image, or likeness. The bill would also provide requirements to be adhered to when compensating high school student athletes for the use of their NIL.

Voting and Elections

Republican Sen. Garland Gudger of Cullman has filed SB 1. The bill makes it a felony for any person to order, request, collect, pre-fill, obtain or deliver an absentee ballot application or absentee ballot of a voter in certain circumstances and would provide for exceptions. This bill also would also make it a felony for any person to receive payment to do so.

Voters requiring assistance would only be get assistance from certain persons, such as immediate family or resident of the same household.

Rep. Adline Clark. D-Mobile, filed a bill that would allow a disabled voter to designate someone to deliver his or her application for an absentee ballot to the absentee election manager. The bill would allow the same for returning a complete absentee ballot.