With support from the Fund, Beth Shelburne conducted an extensive review of accounting data to track Alabama’s skyrocketing legal spending to defend its overcrowded prison system. Shelburne uncovered a record number of lawsuit settlement payments to victims of excessive force, wrongful death and medical neglect inside Alabama prisons. The first story in her reporting, published in the Alabama Reflector, details a $250,000 settlement paid to the mother of a man who was beaten to death by prison guards in 2018. While Alabama’s Attorney General declined to press criminal charges against the officers, the state quietly paid this civil settlement, but still admitted to no wrongdoing. Two of the officers are still working for the agency. Shelburne’s six months of reporting in 2024 is expected to result in a series of additional stories in early 2025.
Grantee uncovers lawsuit settlements for misconduct and neglect in Alabama prisons
