The Governor Kay Ivey Correctional Complex will be Alabama’s first new prison since the 1990s and will include facilities for medical and mental health care and for vocational education. This new 4,000-bed men’s prison in Elmore County is currently under construction and is expected to be completed Oct. 15 2026. The state is making plans for a second 4,000-bed prison in Escambia County next to the almost century-old Fountain Correctional Facility near Atmore. Plans to build the new prisons were

Advocates for incarcerated men and women say they are determined to keep the public spotlight on the “humanitarian crisis” depicted in the new HBO documentary about Alabama prisons. “The Alabama Solution,” uses inmate-shot videos taken on contraband cell phones to reveal crowded dorms, men sleeping on concrete floors, and rats caught in an inmate’s water bottle. The Free Alabama Movement released a list of nine demands that included changes in sentencing laws, parole board reforms, an expansion