The Alabama Solution

Movie: The Alabama Solution

Running Time: 1:54

Nominated for: Best Documentary Feature

How I watched: HBO Max

When it had me: Phones in prison?

When it lost me: It did not

What systems does it challenge: Prison Industrial Complex 

Another heart breaker. This one covers the Alabama prison system which is both overcrowded and understaffed. It also keeps its inmates in unsafe conditions and uses them as a form of slave labor. 

Due to the understaffing, phones have become ubiquitous in prison and the inmates have finally found a way to communicate with the outside world and document some of the injustices that are a regular part of their daily life.

I'm inspired by the inmates who spend their time educating themselves on the law and on activism and fighting for their rights to be treated as humans. And I'm mortified by stories of men who have been behind bars for more than three decades. I can't imagine how I could build a life for myself in a place like that. How do you put one foot in front of the other with any kind of sanity when it's pretty clear you're never getting out?

These brave men have documented the many violations, abuses and crimes of the guards and are filing suit against the whole system. The movie points out that the state of Alabama has never done anything to protect the rights of people of color unless the federal government has required them to do so. The governor of that state takes offense that they are asking for federal assistance with this and insists it will require an "Alabama Solution" rather than a federal one, hence the title.

I wish I could tell you that at the end of two hours it's all worked out but it's s fight that will have to be maintained for quite some time, I fear.