Alabama prison employees group backs lawsuit over conditions at Donaldson Correctional Facility

The Birmingham News
By Tom Gordon
April 3, 2009

 
 
An Alabama prison employees organization has lent its support to a federal lawsuit that charges Donaldson Correctional Facility is beset by overcrowding, violence and severe understaffing and seeks to reduce the prison's population to its original design capacity.  

"Immediate action is required to remedy unsafe and overcrowded conditions for officers and inmates at Donaldson and other Alabama prisons," said Capt. Lloyd Wallace, president of the Alabama Correctional Organization, in a document filed in federal court in Montgomery.

In the declaration, Wallace also said the organization supported "efforts by the plaintiffs in this case to permit an outside prison security expert to conduct an immediate, full and thorough investigation into the living and working conditions at Donaldson."

The suit was filed on behalf of some Donaldson inmates in late February by the Southern Center for Human Rights. Today, citing dangerous and unsanitary conditions in the prison and some violent incidents that have occurred in recent months, the Atlanta-based organization asked that a prison security expert be allowed to inspect Donaldson during one business day on either the week of April 20 or May 11.

Donaldson, a Jefferson County-based facility which opened its doors in 1982, is a maximum security operation with a population of more than 1,700 inmates, nearly double its design capacity.

When the suit was filed, state Corrections Commissioner Richard Allen said one would expect the level of violence at Donaldson to be higher than that at other state prison facilities because many of Alabama's most violent criminals are housed there.

''While it is true that Donaldson is crowded and has other problems, we do not feel the plaintiffs will be able to meet the constitutional standard of showing deliberate indifference towards inmate safety,'' Allen said.