The prison system in America has been one that has been going downhill for years now. As documented in 13th by Ava DuVernay. This is just one account of the mismanagement and horrible treatment of prisoners of the prison system in this country. Another documentary that shows this is the latest film, The Alabama Solution.  This specific account shows how the Alabama Prison System has been corrupted and treated inmates like slaves. After watching this, I’m sure anybody will be appalled by what they see and hear. It’s pretty disgusting. 

This film that premiers on HBO Max next week mainly focuses on three people, Robert Earl Council, aka Kinetic Justice, Melvin Ray, and Steven Davis’s family members.  These three aspects of the documentary show how inmates were mistreated, confined to solitary confinement for extended amounts of time, and physically abused, beyond explanation in the Alabama Department of Corrections. The guards and warden of the prison got away with whatever they wanted because they were understaffed and undersupplied with the proper care by the state. The conditions of the prisons were shown in secret by cellphones stunk into the inmates, which were, in effect, contraband. This is mainly how this message got out to the filmmakers. 

Another aspect of the story was lawyers trying to get justice for the deceased inmate and also trying to get the government involved in this situation. The Department of Justice needed to interview in this situation, but the Alabama legislation led by Governor Kay Ivey did everything they could to keep the control of the prisons under their purview. They knew that things weren’t good in the fourteen prisons in Alabama, but they tried hiding that fact. They used excuses regarding new prisons as their reasoning to not have oversight in their state. It’s a typical government gerrymandering to get their own way. 

The film shows a lot of different ways that things are happening on both sides of this problem. Protestors on government steps, lawyers fighting for justice and various accounts of misconduct and interviews from the accused and the accusers. The blatant lying to the cameras was a clear indication that these people didn’t want things to get out of their hands. They wanted to keep control because it was lucrative for them to do so. That’s what it all came down to in the end. People with secrets don’t want their secrets getting out for everybody to see. Those in power are good at keeping their secrets. Especially when it comes to people like this who they deem to not have any rights.

I’ve seen a lot of different documentaries, and this one gives a lot of information in new and original ways. As I mentioned the cellphones are considered illegal for the inmates to have so the fact that they found ways to get them despite how dangerous it was to have them was an indication how desperate they were to get their story out to the public. They weren’t allowed to have phone calls like other prisons allowed they’re prisoners to have. They would have been monitored by the guards and warden anyway. So that wouldn’t have worked in their favor. The videos that were sent in were pretty incredible, and the underground system of communication was pretty incredible. As the saying goes, if there is a will, there is a way. These men proved that saying perfectly.

There was also a lot of information shown on the screen that pulled the various elements of the documentary together. A lot of this information wasn’t known to the public. It was stuff the lawyers and inmates looked up themselves while having a lot of time on their hands. Stuff sitting in books in their prison libraries. Most of the information was very informative and interesting to me while watching the film. All of this put together proved there was a systematic problem in the Alabama Prison System. The real issue was that many people just looked the other way because they wanted to prophet off of this modern-day slavery scenario. That’s a pretty horrible thing.

The Alabama Solution, which is the name that Kay Ivey,  the governor, gave to the situation regarding the prison problem in Alabama, is by the definition of any other word disgusting. This is a state run program that has instilled modern-day slavery tactics to run their prison system and profit off of the backs of these men and women who are incarcerated. It’s despicable behavior, and these men who braved everything they stood for to get this story out deserve applause. The problem is that despite this film getting out to the public, this has not changed anything in Alabama. The men and women in government keep getting away with these abhorrent conditions in the prisons. These directors Charlotte Kaufman and Andrew Jaracki did a great job bringing this story to light. Hopefully, more people will see it, and something gets done to solve this problem. This is truly what documentary filmmaking is all about.

4 ½ stars

Dan Skip Allen