Tag: Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC)

Demands are made. Willing to submit their very lives to continue to expose, and hopefully change, the deadly conditions prisoners endure in ADOC’s prisons, a 30-day work strike and boycott of prison service providers is planned statewide.

“Months and years of retaliation (have been) endured … by countless (prisoners) who have … made sacrifices that those of us who have never been incarcerated cannot truly understand – all in order to seek accountability, to end prison slavery, and to stop the construction of new prisons that will take from us our children and grandchildren.” – Unheard Voices

Upon arrival at Limestone CF, Traywick began a hunger strike in protest of his unwarranted solitary confinement. This follows multiple waves of recent hunger strikes by prisoners in Alabama, all protesting the same issue, and all exposing the ADOC’s patterns of retaliation and abuse.

As the culture of violence in Alabama’s prison system continues to spiral out of control, yet another provocation has resulted in another day of violence at Holman Prison. Holman is experiencing major staff shortages as a result of officers joining and supporting the non-violent work strikes being led by Free Alabama Movement. ADOC commissioners responded by dispatching CERT Team staff notorious for violent beatings, sexual harassment and excessive force.

At Holman Prison in Atmore, Alabama, only two officers reported for work for the second shift Saturday, Oct. 8. Officers confess being fed up with Gov. Robert Bentley’s putting their very lives in jeopardy simply to further his political agenda of institutionalizing Alabama with plans for new state-of-the-art prisons. The officers at Holman are walking off the job and refusing to come back to work after filing grievance after grievance concerning the ill treatment of prisoners, overcrowding and forced slave labor.

Since Sept. 13, 2016, when Warden Raybon released approximately 20 people from segregation, most of whom were there for violent incidents – only to see several stabbings take place, including one person critically injured and another losing an eye – a total of eight more officers have either quit or given notice. Now officers are expressing concern that ADOC commissioners are intentionally exacerbating violence at the expense of human life in efforts to push forward their plan to extort the public for $1.5 billion to build new prisons in next year’s legislative session.