MONTGOMERY, AL – NO MORE, a project of FWD.us, issued the following statement on Friday’s release of the Alabama Department of Examiners of Public Accounts’ report that documented a culture of secrecy and ongoing dangerous and abusive conditions inside of Alabama prisons:
Less than a month before the Department of Justice is set to begin trial against the Alabama Department of Corrections, the state’s own auditor released a damning report on the prison system in response to an unprecedented bipartisan demand for prison oversight in the 2026 legislative session. The audit from the Department of Examiners of Public Accounts details prisons plagued by unchecked and underinvestigated violence, squalid living conditions, negligence, secrecy, and a lack of individual or systemic accountability.
Policymakers, media, and the public will find hundreds of urgent issues in the over 100 pages of the Chief Examiner’s analysis of policies, personnel files, staff interviews, and a survey of incarcerated Alabamians. The report describes “an underlying sense of secrecy within the agency,” with the final audit requiring legislative subpoenas against the Department of Corrections to gain access to relevant documents, and the questionable presence of the prison’s legal department when conducting interviews with corrections staff.
Perhaps most chilling are the reports of ongoing violence including use of force by officers and physical and sexual assaults by officers and incarcerated people and the systemic failures to prevent or appropriately respond to them. More than two-thirds of incarcerated people surveyed as part of the audit indicated a concern of staff using excessive force, and nearly the same number reported being harassed or discriminated against by staff.
The Chief Examiner’s report is the latest in a litany of indictments in recent years from local and national media including the Oscar-nominated film The Alabama Solution, investigations including by the Department of Justice, advocacy and research reports, and years of consistent testimony from policymakers, community members, and incarcerated Alabamians.
“This report adds to an already clear and scalding expert consensus: Alabama’s prisons remain in crisis and those in its custody remain trapped in dire and dangerous conditions with no real hope of protection or remedy,” said Alesha Judkins, Senior Campaign Director at FWD.us. “We are grateful to the Chief Examiner for taking so seriously this very difficult task. State leaders have a sober responsibility in what comes next.”
The No More Campaign calls on state lawmakers, including the Governor-Elect to:
- Expand the investigation: Lawmakers must support the Chief Examiner in expanding the pilot audit into all prisons and the full Department of Corrections
- Appoint new leaders: Ensure the Department of Corrections has leadership from the commissioner down committed to addressing the issues in the audit and that the DOJ has found
- Enact oversight legislation: Permanent outside oversight structures will ensure that prisons are not investigating their own negligence and abuse
- Move abusive officers out of prisons and off the payroll: Prioritize immediate accountability for well documented patterns of abuse by state correctional employees