ALABAMA PRISON CRISIS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Alabama's love affair with incarceration has failed from a crime-control perspective. If the purpose of prisons is to combat crime and provide for public safety then Alabama's tendency to "lock them up and let the parole board sort them out" must be viewed as a failure. While the growth in the state's incarceration rate has outpaced the nation as a whole, Alabama lags behind when it comes to reducing index crime rates. Further, a disproportionate, and growing, share of the state's correctional resources has been devoted to incarcerating people convicted of nonviolent offenses. Person offenses accounted for just a quarter of prison admissions during the last half-decade, and the proportion continues to fall as drug and property commitments grow. The use of incarceration for offenses that are directly tied to substance abuse contributes significantly to Alabama's overcrowding crisis. Among the ten leading commitment offenses, the top three are substance-related. Drug and alcohol offenses account for just 38 percent of all prison admissions. In 2004, more people were admitted to prison for possession of marijuana than for first-and-second degree assaults combined. While many states taken to reduce incarceration of substance abusers, Alabama is allowing addiction to drive prison growth. Comparing 1999 and 2004, commitments for drug possession and DUI were up by 28 percent, respectively, while admissions for personal offenses were down by 14 percent.