House Speaker Pro Tem Chris Pringle, R-Mobile, sits in the speaker’s chair in the Alabama House of Representatives on Feb. 8, 2024 in Montgomery, Alabama. During a meeting of the state’s Contract Review Committee on Thursday, Pringle asked a DOC attorney to respond to what he described as an assault on an inmate and an extortion attempt directed at the inmate’s family. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)
A member of the Legislature’s Contract Review Committee Thursday asked an attorney for the Alabama Department of Corrections to respond to what he said was an extortion threat to a constituent whose child is in prison.
Rep. Chris Pringle, R-Mobile, told Mandy Speirs, assistant general counsel for the Alabama Department of Corrections, that the constituent had received a video claiming that their loved one had been sexually assaulted, with a threat for further violence if they did not get money.
Pringle spoke as the committee considered a contract from The Moss Group Inc. based out of Washington D.C. According to the contract description, it is intended to provide “strategic support, consulting services on sexual safety, operational practice, staff training, PREA (Prison Rape Elimination Act) compliance (and) maintain continuity of efforts with regard to (the) Male Inmate Pilot Risk Reduction Plan.”
The contract pays the company $378,000 between October of this year and September 2025, with an option for an extension. That increases the total award to almost $1.9 million.
“This poor lady, her son, is constantly getting the crap beat out of him,” Pringle said. “I couldn’t tell because the video is bad, but he is getting up off the floor and pulling his pants up.”
Pringle told DOC staff during a Contract Review Committee meeting in June that he fielded calls from constituents saying their family members had been subjected to assault in prison.
Speirs said she was “sorry to hear that.”
“You think you are, imagine how his mother felt when she was sent this video,” Pringle said in response.
Spiers then told members of the committee that Corrections has been working to address the issue for the past few years.
“As I say when I come here every month, we are making great strides in this area,” she said. “I would love to talk with you offline, invite you to come over and speak to any of us, come to any of our facilities and see the things that we have tried to turn around in the last few years.”
Some on the committee were not moved.
“Something is not working,” said Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa. “Something isn’t working. And I think some of the other contracts that are on today’s agenda also reflect some of the same issues, same problems, costs going up, giving more money, but we get less in return.”
The pleas came as the committee approved two legal contracts totaling $400,000 for the Birmingham law firm of Wallace, Jordan, Ratliff & Brandt, LLC to defend Corrections officers and administrators in two ongoing cases alleging civil rights violations.
Committee members unanimously approved the two contracts.
Alabama’s prisons remain some of the most violent in the nation, and Thursday’s conversation is only the most recent in a string of meetings in which the public, along with legislators, have repeated their comments.
Many of the same concerns and issues were brought to lawmakers’ attention during the Joint Prison Oversight Committee meeting in July. The U.S. Department of Justice sued the state in 2020 over rampant violence in state prisons, alleging the conditions violated inmates’ Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment.
During Thursday’s meeting, the Alabama Attorney General’s Office presented one new legal contract to the Contract Review Committee that members approved totaling $200,000 to Terri Tompkins. Esq. of Rosen Harwood PA, a law firm based in Tuscaloosa, to represent Corrections staff in another case.
Members of the Contract Review Committee also approved four additional contracts. Two of the contracts were new but would not cost the state any money. The first contract is to Union Supply Group, Inc. based in Dallas, Texas to sell, furnish and deliver footwear and incentive packages for people in DOC custody who are eligible to receive such items.
The second contract, also at no cost to the state, is to Securus Technologies, LLC based in Plano, Texas to provide a communications system.
A third contract that was approved was awarded to YesCare, based in Brentwood, Tennessee, to provide health care to those within DOC custody. With the awarded contract, the company is set to receive an additional $2 million from the state on top of the more than $1 billion that Corrections awarded to the company in early 2023.