Alabama Tries To Stave Off Federal Prison Intervention

State lawmakers, trying to stave off feared federal intervention, approved a reform package this spring that includes a bond issue for additional prison space and a new law making sweeping changes to sentencing and probation standards. The changes seek to gradually reduce crowding by steering low-level offenders away from prison with the creation of a new Class D felony category and to reduce recidivism with making changes to probation and supervision, including hiring additional probation officers who now handle caseloads of 200 inmates each. The reform effort won Alabama — a state that once used hitching posts and chain gangs — praise from a group often at odds with the prison policy decisions of Alabama lawmakers, the American Civil Liberties Union said. The chairman of the Senate budget committee, said prisons will be a funding priority if lawmakers find additional funds. Corrections Commissioner Jeff Dunn told lawmakers that a nearly 5 percent funding cut to state prisons would force the closure of two prisons and move nearly 2,000 inmates to other facilities, driving capacity over 220 percent.

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