Alabama is grappling with how to reform an overcrowded, understaffed prison system that perpetuates violence and fails to rehabilitate prisoners. It’s a problem that has confronted many other states as their prison populations mushroomed during the era of “tough-on- crime” policies that made America the incarceration capital of the world.
A private company contracts with a municipal court judge and the city of Gardendale, Alabama to create an illegal probation scheme that exploits low-income defendants and violates their constitutional rights, the SPLC said in a federal lawsuit and a judicial ethics complaint that were filed this week.
In Gardendale, Alabama, municipal court defendants unable to pay court costs and fees in full were placed on probation with the company Private Probation Services (PPS), which charged defendants a $40 monthly fee for supervising their probation. These payments were unconstitutionally enforced...
A series of conflicts at a Houston protest last Saturday between members of the Alt-Right and a slew of Texas based militia and “patriot” groups has reanimated a tired trope at the heart of the Alt-Right: baby boomers are responsible for every problem afflicting whites in modern America.
Mobile police likely violated people’s Constitutional rights when they conducted checkpoints that targeted crime in predominantly black neighborhoods – a practice that the department must stop, the Southern Poverty Law Center said in a letter to Mobile Police Chief Lawrence Battiste.
Governor Kay Ivey was right to drop the appeal of Alabama's frivolous lawsuit over refugee placement.
The money bail system in Randolph County, Alabama, violated the constitutional rights of people charged with misdemeanors or felonies because it created a “two-tiered” system of justice based on wealth. The Southern Poverty Law Center and its allies filed a federal class action lawsuit to end...
Creditors can’t garnish the wages of low-income Alabamians if they are earning less than $1,000 per paycheck and that money is being spent on living expenses, the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals recently ruled in a case brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center and Legal Services Alabama (LSA) on behalf of two women who would have been unable to support their families if a creditor had garnished their wage
After hearing two months of testimony, a federal judge will now decide whether Alabama’s troubled prison system violates the rights of prisoners by failing to provide adequate mental health care.
After hearing two months of testimony, a federal judge will now decide whether Alabama’s troubled prison system violates the rights of prisoners by failing to provide adequate mental health care.
