Federal court asked to block Alabama parole policy amid ‘convict leasing’ allegations
A group of current and formerly incarcerated people alleging state prisons are using slave labor asked a federal judge Thursday to order the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles to use guidelines that predate a steep drop in parole grants in recent years.
The motion for an injunction also asked the judge “to remedy the unlawful parole denials and extended reconsideration periods rendered since Oct. 1, 2019” and to prohibit Gov. Kay Ivey and Attorney General Steve Marshall from instructing the parole board to ensure that incarcerated individuals who Alabama deems “violent” are not granted parole.
“We’re doing everything we’re supposed to do to get back to our families,” said Arthur Ptomey, Jr., a plaintiff in the lawsuit, in a press release. “I’m guilty of my crime — and yes, I do believe I deserve another chance. I believe no one, though, is getting a fair chance or a fair hearing from this Parole Board to demonstrate we are ready and fit to return to supporting our families and our communities.”
A message seeking comment from the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles was left on Thursday.
The lawsuit, filed last week in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama in Montgomery, alleging that Alabama prison labor is sustained by punishing those who refuse to work or those who encourage other prisoners to refuse to work. It also accuses public and private entities, ranging from local governments to fast food restaurants and grocery stores, of benefitting from the labor.
The lawsuit also alleged that the state grew these programs by favoring white over Black prisoners in parole decisions for release. It further alleges that the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles, which has sharply curtailed parole grants in recent years, has “unlawfully refused to release people from prison and further skewed the racial composition of the incarcerated population by wrongfully denying parole to thousands of Alabamians—and to Black Alabamians in particular.”
A statement from a group affiliated with the plaintiffs said Thursday the motion targets 2019 amendments to Alabama’s Justice Reinvestment Act, “which has effectively shut down any opportunity for parole consideration for thousands of people since September 2019.”
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit — who include currently and formerly incarcerated Alabamians, three unions representing service industry employees and the Woods Foundation, a civil rights organization — are asking the court to issue an injunction, ending Alabama’s current practice of “forced [prison] labor;” to release individuals qualified for parole; require the state to pay the plaintiffs what they earn through working in the prison system, as well as monetary damages to be determined at trial.
The lawsuit also claims Alabama made almost half a billion dollars from prison labor in 2023.
“They have been entrapped in a system of ‘convict leasing’ in which incarcerated people are forced to work, often for little or no money, for the ‘benefit of the numerous government entities and private businesses that ’employ them,’” the lawsuit alleged.
Alabama Reflector is part of States Newsroom, an independent nonprofit website covering politics and policy in state capitals around the nation.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Court asked to block Alabama parole policy amid slave labor claims
