Sheriffs Add to Prison Woes in Alabama

Alabama’s troubled corrections system was thrown into crisis Tuesday when two sheriffs sent more than 200 inmates from their crowded jails to state prisons where cellblocks are already packed.

Armed with a court ruling, sheriffs in Jefferson and Houston counties delivered inmates who were supposed to be in state lockups--not in crowded county jails where prisoners have little choice but to sleep on floors and tables.

The transfer is the latest problem in Alabama’s decades-old struggle with too many inmates in often squalid jails and prisons. The state has one of the nation’s highest rates of incarceration but no plans to build more prisons.

More than 26,000 people are incarcerated in Alabama, or 571 per 100,000 residents; only five states have higher rates.

“State prisons are full, county jails are full and the probation officers are loaded up with cases,” said Allen Tapley, executive director of the Sentencing Institute, a private research group.

Gov. Donald Siegelman said state prisons will absorb the transferred inmates. But with little extra bed space, he said, state lawyers have asked a judge to halt the influx.

He said counties should look for alternatives and not “simply wash their hands of the situation.”