New Prison Plan Passes First Hurdle In State House

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Prisons are at the forefront in the state house after a violent outbreak at Holman prison.

Now lawmakers are moving forward with a plan to build four new state of the art facilities.

A senate committee has been debating this issue for weeks, but now they’re moving the plan along.
But it still has a long way to go.

After two riots left an Alabama warden, another officer, and inmates stabbed, lawmakers are taking a close look at the governor’s prison plan.

The prison transformation act would take out $800 million in bonds to create these new facilities.

“Obviously there are some issues that transpired in the last week or so that helped to focus on the need for this. I think at the end of the day that there’s a lot more compelling interests to do it rather than not to, I think this will be good for the citizens of the state, good for the inmates,” said Sen. Trip Pittman.

Governor Bentley announced the plan at his state of the state address.

The governor and other lawmakers, including Senator Cam Ward, toured Holman this week after the riots.

“The warden and officers there said we can’t put modern security cameras in here because the wiring in the building is so old it won’t hold. We can’t put modern day locks in here because the design of the building is so old, it can’t handle it. You hear that over and over and over, the layout was built in the 1960’s for a population half that size,” said Sen. Ward.

One of the setbacks that’s kept the bill in committee so long is figuring out just who will get to build the new prisons.
Contractors and architects in the state are worried they’ll miss out on the opportunity.

“We want to make sure that we have as many Alabama contractors as possible. I would like for every sub contractor, even if the contractor is from out of state. I would like for every sub contractor to be from Alabama. That may not be possible for that’s our goal,” said Governor Bentley.

“We’re about the be, we’re over the halfway point in this legislative session. If we don’t do something now, time is going to run out and we’ll waste another year and unfortunately I think we’ll see a lot more Holman’s in the future,” said Sen. Ward.

Now the bill moves on the the full senate. Committee Chairman Trip Pittman says he expects it to come up some time next week.

If the bill passes, the governor wants to have the three men’s facilities and one female facility finished by 2019.