Two months after her son’s death, Sandy Ray stood before an Alabama state task force on criminal justice policy and held up two photos of him: one as he had been known and the other, intubated, with puffy eyes. and the orbits resembled two dark pools, after he was beaten and beaten beyond recognition in prison.
“This is my son,” Ray said in December, showing the before and after photos of Steven Davis, 35.
“He had to have a closed coffin because of what had been done to him,” he said, according to The Associated Press. “No one, not even a dog, deserves this.”
The Alabama Department of Corrections said Davis’ death in October was at the hands of two correctional officers at the Donaldson Correctional Center outside Birmingham, where he had been serving a 20-year sentence for his role in a 2006 murder.
To this day, Ray knows little more than what he released publicly: his son, brandishing weapons made in the prison in each hand, “attempted to hit an officer,” according to prison officials. When he refused to carry out his orders, the staff members “applied physical measures to [defuse] the threat“ After the altercation ended, Davis was taken to the hospital and died the following day.
Despite attempts by officials to learn what happened and the push for a full criminal investigation into the actions of correctional officers, “they act as if it did not happen,” Ray told NBC News on Friday.
However, his lingering concerns were acknowledged in a 28-page Justice Department report released Thursday that investigated extensive allegations of excessive force in Alabama men’s jails. The review is notable for being the latest to sound an alarm over what inmate advocates and legal groups have long described as unconstitutional conditions within the state prison system.
“These uses of excessive force, including the use of batons, chemical spraying, and physical altercations such as kicking, often result in serious injury and sometimes death,” the Justice Department report found. “In fact, in the final months of 2019, at least two prisoners at two different ADOC facilities died after the use of force.”
While the report doesn’t directly mention Davis as one of the two deaths, it sheds more light on what happened to him. In his case, the Justice Department noted that “numerous witness-prisoners … reported that correctional officers continued to beat the prisoner after he dropped any weapon and posed no threat.”
Ray said she is “glad the findings have been made public, and while it is too late for my son, it may be a warning to others.”
The Justice Department investigation opened in October 2016 to examine conditions in the 13 state men’s prisons, which house some 16,000 inmates, and a litany of complaints of physical and sexual harm and excessive force by correctional officers . As a result, an initial federal report in April 2019 found that prisons are violating the Constitution by failing to protect inmates from violence and sexual abuse, and by keeping them in overcrowded facilities.
Those findings prompted Republican Gov. Kay Ivey to set up a criminal justice policy study group, the work of which was supposed to be the cornerstone of this year’s legislative session. According to State Senator Cam Ward, a Republican who chairs the State Senate Judiciary Committee, proposals were considered to potentially reduce prisoners’ recidivism, reconsider lengthy sentences for certain nonviolent criminals, and increase prison oversight. The coronavirus pandemic derailed the momentum of the effort.
The Southern Poverty Law Center found that, in May, when the Alabama Board of Pardons and Protests met after canceling hearings due to the pandemic, it granted parole to only 15 people out of 160 cases reviewed that month. All but four of those prisoners are white.
The latest Justice Department report focused on the allegations of excessive force and concluded that prisoners’ constitutional rights to be protected against “cruel and unusual punishment” were being violated.
Cases cited include incidents such as one in December 2018, in which a correctional officer beat a handcuffed prisoner while shouting, “I am the reaper of death, now say my name!” According to the witnesses. In another, in February 2019, a sergeant beat two handcuffed prisoners and then filed a false report; And in September 2019, a lieutenant hit a prisoner on a concrete floor and knocked him unconscious.
“Our investigation found reasonable cause to believe that there is a pattern or practice of using excessive force against prisoners in Alabama men’s prisons,” Deputy Attorney General Eric Dreiband of the Civil Rights Division said in a statement.
Louis Franklin, the US attorney for the Alabama Middle District, called the allegations “distressing” and said the agency is “hopeful that our continued work with state officials can ensure that the Department of Corrections meets its constitutional obligations “
In a statement that followed the Justice Department report, Ivey said he remains “committed as always to improving prison security through investment in necessary infrastructure, increased correctional staff, comprehensive mental health care services and outreach programs. effective rehabilitation, among other elements. “
Alabama, which has one of the highest incarceration rates in the United States, is tackling criminal justice reform under the stress of prison overcrowding. The Justice Department said state prisons cumulatively house 6,000 prisoners above their designed capacity.
But both the Alabama Department of Corrections and State Attorney General Steve Marshall were baffled by the report. “We were ambushed,” Marshall said in a statement.
He said that while the Department of Corrections faces challenges, the state is responding with the construction of three new men’s prison facilities to help ease the burden. Alabama, he added, “will not be intimidated in a perpetual consent decree to govern our prison system, nor will we be pressured to reach such an agreement with federal bureaucrats.”
State corrections officials said Friday that the department is addressing the allegations of excessive force through a newly formed violence reduction task force, update training for correctional staff, the implementation of so-called the force and a pilot program for correctional officers. using body cameras, similar to police departments.
Cynthia Roseberry, deputy director of policy for the Justice Division of the American Civil Liberties Union, said Alabama and other states, such as Mississippi and South Carolina, with similar problems of prison overcrowding, violence and lack of funds are reeling under a “confinement”. and the mindset of throwing away the key. “
He added that the Justice Department report only confirms that the problem is systemic. Significant reforms cannot wait, he said, particularly with the deadly and rapid spread of the coronavirus in prisons.
“When someone dies, our government should not demand human sacrifice before taking action,” added Roseberry.
Ray said he understands that some people may not see prison reform as essential while states, including Alabama, grapple with the current public health crisis, but believes that the criminal justice system can engulf any family at least expect it.
“Never say, ‘It won’t be me,'” he said. “Because the first person was yelling and screaming, saying, ‘That person deserved to die anyway,’ well, it could be your son, your grandson, or your brother next.”
