From The Tribune staff reports
MONTGOMERY — State lawmakers will meet Monday in a special called session of the legislature to consider a plan to add a pair of 4,000-bed prisons to address overcrowding and other issues in the penal system.
The proposed prisons are part of a plan developed by Governor Kay Ivey in response to a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice which alleges that the conditions in Alabama’s men’s prisons are a constitutional violation.
Ivey’s plan starts with an initial commitment of about $1.4 billion — a $785 million bond issue, $400 million in federal dollars from a coronavirus recovery bill, and $154 million from the state’s General Fund.
The two prisons — one in Elmore County and one in Escambia — would be the first new prisons built in Alabama since the mid-1990s.
