From Barbarism Toward Decency: Alabama's Long Road to Prison Reform

• Published in: The journal of research in crime and delinquency 1989-11, Vol.26 (4), p.307-328
• Main Author: CONRAD, JOHN P.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Alabama; Biological and medical sciences; Compliance; Courts; Criminal justice; Federal court decisions; Federal courts; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Human rights; Litigation; Management; Organizational change; Penal policy; Political change; Prison reform; Prisons; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Reform; Resistance; Social psychology; Substandard; U.S.A
• ISSN: 0022-4278; 1552-731X
• DOI: 10.1177/0022427889026004001

In this article I recount the seventeen years of litigation in the Federal courts in Newman v. Alabama and Pugh v. Locke . These cases sought injunctive relief from abusive and overcrowded conditions of confinement in the Alabama prisons. The political resistance to change is described. The measures taken by successive administrators of the Department of Corrections to achieve compliance with the decrees of the Federal court are discussed. The court's monitoring of compliance with a Human Rights Committee is evaluated. Its unprecedented designation of the governor as Receiver for the Department of Corrections and the accomplishments of the Receiver are described. The monitoring of an Implementation Committee is narrated. The enormous difficulties of organizational change in a conflict-ridden political climate, complicated by incompetent administrative personnel are analysed. I emphasise the crucial importance of judicial intervention in bringing about successful organizational change in substandard correctional administration where the political establishment supports the status quo.