USA: Alabama will build 3 prisons for men, Ivey announces

Gov. Kay Ivey announced today that her administration will seek bids for building three regional prisons for men to replace aging, cramped facilities that the Alabama Department of Corrections has said are too costly to maintain and repair.

The governor said new prisons are a necessary part of a larger plan to fix a system plagued by violence, a severe shortage of correctional officers, overcrowding, and what a federal judge ruled are unconstitutional deficiencies in mental health care.

“Alabama truly does have a major problem with our overcrowding of our prisons and it’s a challenge that we Alabamians must solve, not the federal courts,” Ivey said.

Ivey and Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner Jeff Dunn outlined the plan during a press briefing today. Dunn said current cost estimates are a total of about $900 million but no final estimate has been determined.

The Ivey administration says money saved from closing aging, outdated prisons and consolidating operations will pay for the new construction. The administration said the savings from updating and improving the efficiency of prisons will be $79.6 million annually.

“We have no plans to ask for additional appropriations to pay for this,” Dunn said.

The financing arrangement is still to be determined, Ivey said. Those options include an agreement under which the state would lease and operate prisons built by private companies, or a state bond issue to pay for construction.

“All options are one the table,” Ivey said. “We’re still gathering data.”

Today’s announcement was expected. Ivey had said during her inaugural address in January that she would soon make an announcement on building prisons.

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