How We Did It
To put together this report, the SPLC submitted a public records request to obtain Community Corrections Plans sent to the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC), most often annually, for each county or group of counties operating a community corrections program.
Each plan is intended to have basic information about a program’s operations, including its fee schedule. Using data from those plans, we created a database containing information about the programs’ operations, including the widely varying fees they charge to participants and the services they offer.
We also used business registry information from the Alabama Secretary of State and directories from the Administrative Office of Courts to confirm information on program operations and directors. Additionally, we called the director of every program to verify information that was unclear in the Community Corrections Plan. Every call or email communication was documented and dated in a verification database, and any email interaction was saved for additional confirmation. Only Jackson County Community Corrections is omitted from our findings. Its director offered a “no comment” statement to our programmatic questions, so we were unable to verify its operations.
A link to the data, methodology and any caveats can be found here and here.
To report program income, we obtained all contracts awarded by ADOC to community corrections programs for fiscal year 2018. We also collected Form 990s – the publicly available tax documents that tax-exempt organizations file to the IRS each year – for most community corrections programs that were registered as 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations. Additionally, we obtained all program evaluations and audits of community corrections programs performed by ADOC prior to October 2018, when the request was filed.
Return to the Opportunity Costs: Unequal Justice in Alabamas' Community Corrections Programs landing page.
