Alabama Cannot Build Its Way Out of a Moral Crisis

Guest Opinion by Amanda Pusczek

Alabama’s prison system isn’t just broken; it’s failing in ways that should alarm every voter, regardless of party. Overcrowding, violence, understaffing, and neglect have become the status quo. Correctional officers work in a state of constant fear. Families wait for loved ones who return more damaged than when they went in - if they return at all.

And yet, the state’s answer remains the same: build bigger prisons.

At today’s meeting of the Joint Prison Oversight Committee (28 January), prison officials spoke urgently about the need for more funding. But the “solution” on the table wasn’t reform — it was concrete.

The plan involves three massive mega-prisons with a price tag stretching into the billions. This plan is marketed as the “Alabama Solution.” We are told newer facilities will be safer, more efficient, and more humane. But Alabama’s prison crisis isn’t caused by old buildings. It’s caused by bad policy.

You can replace every brick and mortar facility in the state and still recreate the same nightmare if you continue to lock up too many people for too long. Alabama incarcerates at one of the highest rates in the world, operating at nearly double its intended capacity. This isn’t an accident; it’s a design choice. Decades of harsh sentencing laws that prioritize punishment over rehabilitation, limited parole that leaves inmates with no incentive for growth, and a political culture that confuses “tough on crime” with public safety.

Inside these overcrowded facilities, violence thrives, drugs circulate freely, and medical care is an afterthought. Chronic understaffing leaves units unsupervised. The Department of Justice has already signaled that these conditions are unconstitutional. Every day we delay reform, the bill for taxpayers grows, not just in construction, but in lawsuits and the looming threat of a federal takeover.

The fiscal irresponsibility of it all should outrage voters. Alabama has already poured billions into corrections in just a few years. One new prison has surpassed the $1 billion mark. That money could have strengthened schools, expanded mental health care, or rebuilt our crumbling infrastructure. Instead, we’re committing future generations to decades of prison debt without reducing the number of people filling those cells.

As one representative admitted during the meeting, these new facilities won’t expand capacity. They’ll just reshuffle people into newer warehouses. Bigger cages don’t make communities safer. They simply make mass incarceration more permanent.

If the goal is public safety, we should be looking at outcomes. Currently, people leave Alabama prisons without addiction treatment — even when court-ordered — without job training or stable housing. When they return, we call it “recidivism”. The truth is simpler: it’s policy failure.

The most telling moment of today’s meeting came at the end. An official described a program — now cut — that provided job training, housing, and support after release. By his own admission, it had an impressively low recidivism rate.

After an hour of hearing that prison reform is “complicated,” the solution revealed itself plainly: when we invest in people instead of punishment, they succeed. Alabama doesn’t have a prison construction problem. It has a courage problem. It’s time we stop building bigger warehouses and start building a system that actually works.

Amanda Pusczek is a seasoned medical professional and lifelong advocate for marginalized and “othered” communities. Her decades of nursing have shown her what policy failures look like in real life — families bankrupted by illness, rural hospitals shuttered, patients turned away. Amanda is running for Congress as a Democrat in Alabama’s 4th District because care should not depend on your ZIP code, income, or job.

For more information on Pusczek and her campaign, visit https://www.amandaforalabama.com or follow her on social media.

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