Associated Press
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — A state task force will weigh options this month for how to relieve severe overcrowding in Alabama prisons.
Committee members say the ideas will likely include sentencing changes, building new facilities to house inmates and increased resources for probation and parole.
Prison Reform Task Force Chairman Cam Ward said he hopes to have legislation ready in February.
Alabama has the fourth-highest incarceration rate in the country. State prisons house about 25,000 inmates, nearly twice the number they were built to hold.
Task force member Sen. Vivian Davis Figures of Mobile said the federal courts could eventually order Alabama to release inmates, as they did in California, unless Alabama fixes the problem.
Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore said he thought the state’s habitual offender law is a contributor to prison overcrowding.