After the Strike
A Look at the Atmosphere and Living Conditions in the Aftermath of Alabama's Statewide Prisoner Work Stoppage
In early November, I follow up with a man in Fountain Correctional Facility about the atmosphere in the prison in the weeks since the statewide worker stoppage in all 13 of Alabama’s adult male prisons came to an end on October 14th. I’ll refer to this prisoner as “Justin” to protect his safety and privacy.
We discuss the living conditions in Fountain, health issues for which prisoners are not receiving adequate treatment, the disappointment in the lack of changes made by the State of Alabama as a result of the strike, and other subjects. We are speaking just days after the country’s midterm elections, and Republican Governor Kay Ivey has just won re-election.
“Governor Ivey won the vote,” says Justin at the beginning of our conversation. “Nothing is going to change. She’s not changing anything in the prison system. She is still trying to build prisons to keep us confined.” Justin points out that Governor Ivey has been trying to “take the stimulus money for the state and use it to build prisons, and people… don’t want her to use the money from the state to build a new prison.”
As the ACLU of Alabama points out, “The State of Alabama had planned to spend $400 million of [the Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds] to build new state prisons, which would consume about 20 percent of Alabama’s total Covid-19 relief funds.”
JeTaune Bosby, Executive Director of the ACLU of Alabama, said in a statement,
Governor Ivey and other state leaders have been unsuccessful in trying to build these prisons for years now, and even though they made the gesture of asking the Treasury Department whether they could use this money for prison construction, they never waited for an answer before rushing ahead. Now, the department has issued their final rules, and as we knew all along, spending COVID-19 relief funds on prison construction is inappropriate, particularly while healthcare workers, teachers, small business owners, and so many other people in Alabama are struggling during this ongoing pandemic.
A July 2022 article in Southern Poverty Law Center notes that while Alabama is considering using its COVID relief funds to build three new prisons, it is also “the fifth-poorest state in the country, with nearly 17% of its population living in poverty,” and that its prison system has “the highest homicide rate in the country – eight times the national average.”
Justin continues, “So, now that the strike is over, everything is remaining the same. It’s still nasty. None of the conditions have changed. Nothing has changed.”
He elaborates, “The food hasn’t changed. The condition of the prison hasn’t changed as far as the cleanness, as far as how they’re treating us. Everything is basically the same. It feels like we went on strike for absolutely nothing… They’re still feeding us three meals, but it’s totaled out to one meal. There’s no 2,500 calories for the diabetics. They’re still not doing medical.”
Justin suffers from diabetes and related health problems, and has struggled to receive adequate or timely treatment for many months. Throughout his days and nights, he is experiencing a great deal of pain.
“I’ve been on a medical sick call list since the 23rd of September, and I still haven’t seen a doctor or a nurse. I suffer from neuropathy, and I still haven’t received” a visit with a doctor, says Justin.
He elaborates, “I have a diabetes situation, and it [causes] neuropathy… and it causes severe pain to my legs, my limbs, my feet. It causes that to actually have an effect on my walking and my ability to go through a lot of pain at night and sleep. They are giving me the least amount of pain medication that would be prescribed in the situation. They’re not giving me the proper medication. I haven’t seen a nurse nor a doctor to assist me in my situation.”
Justin has submitted numerous medical requests called “sick call sheets” in the prison, “and I still haven’t seen a doctor or a nurse,” he says. “I put in five [sick call sheets] that I remember for a fact, and I’ve written the head director of the nurses, and I have not heard anything back.” He says he submitted the first of these five sick call sheets in early September.
He hasn’t seen a doctor since long before the strike started on September 23rd. He continues, “They didn’t give me my medicine until after the strike was over. Then they gave me metformin and a 500 milligram naproxen, which is like a top grade of Motrin.”
Asked if these medications have helped since he finally got them in the days after the strike, Justin answers, “No. I’m still suffering from severe pain. I’m waking up in the middle of the night.”
Months ago, Justin was prescribed special shoes by a doctor to treat his neuropathy. “They finally gave them to me,” he says, “after a month of me getting people to call and write complaints about it. They failed to acknowledge the fact that I had a profile from the doctor prescribing me a certain shoe. They failed to adhere to it at Ventress. One of the captains, as well as the wardens at Ventress, they failed to comply with the paperwork from the Department of Corrections’ healthcare.”
Justin was first prescribed the shoes in April 2022, months before he was transferred, and it wasn’t until November that he was finally given the shoes, months after he arrived at Fountain, and after a month of complaints to the prison from himself and others about the matter.
Health issues and the lack of adequate healthcare for the prisoners is a problem Justin has seen in prisons throughout the state during his sentence. Fountain is no exception.
He points out that, as has always been the case, six feet social distancing is impossible in prison and, “You’ve still got COVID running through the prison. You’ve got scabies running through the prison. You’ve got AIDs running through the prison. You’ve got guys falling out [overdosing] smoking these drugs, and the [corrections officers] are allowing it. They are with it. They see it. They don’t do anything about it. It’s a security and health hazard, and they don’t do anything about it… You might get stabbed by a guy that decided to get high off ice and hallucinates then turns around and stabs somebody.” (“Ice” is a form of crystal meth.)
“Guys here with cancer, they’re not treating them properly,” says Justin. “They’re not doing anything that’s right. Guys suffer with diabetes, suffer with blood sugar, all type of illness… I haven’t been treated properly at this facility for any of my illness… You’ve got roaches and rats. This place is infested with roaches and rats.”
Later in the interview, Justin sees an exterminator walking through the prison, and while still on the phone, asks him to spray more of the liquid he is using to kill the bugs. “Get this whole area. It’s got rats and roaches running around here like you wouldn’t believe.” The man tells him the warden asked him to spray only “one drop” of the liquid around each bed. “Man, the warden don’t stay down here,” Justin replies to the man.
An argument ensues. I can’t hear much of what is said for a moment. At one point, Justin asks the man, “What company you work for?” The man responds, “Cook’s.” “Cook’s Pest Control?” asks Justin. “Yeah,” says the man.
After the encounter, Justin explains to me, “I spoke with the folks coming in to spray. They’re coming in to spray right now, and they put one drop of something around each bed, saying that the warden is saying that we can only receive one spray.”
Justin continues, “Like I said, they’re still feeding us poor. It’s still nasty, everything in here. There’s no heat in this place, no heat or [air] circulation.”
Later, the man from Cook’s Pest Control passes Justin again. Justin stops him. “This is the guy from Cook’s,” he tells me. On speaker phone, he asks the man again, “You say the warden says we can’t get more than one spray, sir?” “That’s it,” the man replies. Justin pleads with him to spray more, but the man insists he can’t. The phone breaks up again as they argue.
A moment later, we continue the interview. “When you wake up in the middle of the night, there’s roaches crawling out of your boxers,” says Justin. “There’s rats being found in these boxers. When you’re laying in the bed, there are rats, and this dorm is infested with bugs and rats... You’ve got cats in the prison too.”
Cook’s Pest Conrol, the Alabama based company, is estimated to have an annual revenue of 240 million dollars and touts a “110% satisfaction guarantee” on its website.
Returning to the subject of the strike, Justin says, “I feel like the protest was a good idea, but it was a fluke, because nothing has changed. Nothing has turned different, living in a dorm with no heat” when it’s cold, “and no air circulation” when it’s hot.
Justin adds, “It’s just frustrating that it seems like we went through three weeks of not getting proper food, not getting the things we need,” only for nothing to change
At the end of our conversation, I ask Justin if he feels the strike would have accomplished more if prisoners in other states had gone on strike at or around the same time as prisoners in Alabama. “Yes,” he answers.