I've been thinking about the callous response from @ALCorrections over @TheJusticeDept suing Alabama. To view the prisons as anything outside a bloody shameful horror, one must willfully other the victims. If you gaslight the process you don't have to focus on the people. 1/7

Dwight Campbell, 48, is just one person murdered in an Alabama prison this year. Last month he was stabbed to death at Bullock CF and as the DOJ pointed out in the complaint, he'd been eligible for parole for 8 months and was 3 weeks away from his hearing when he was killed. 2/7

ADOC says it disagrees with the allegations, but what is inaccurate about record homicides, assaults & overdoses? Instead of admitting the leadership vacuum that allows illegal drugs & weapons into the prisons, ADOC bellyaches about the "tone and tenor" of the complaint. 3/7

ADOC characterizes recent rapes and beatings as "piecemeal anecdotes" that "do not reflect the hard work and important service provided by our correctional staff." Instead of owning the pervasive trauma endured by prisoners, the agency attempts to paint itself as the victim. 4/7

ADOC now has the 4th highest prison death rate from COVID in the nation. When they announce deaths, the person's sentence and conviction is first, next is other health issues aka "multiple pre-existing conditions," as if the death was unavoidable. No mention of the loss. 5/7

A woman whose husband is in prison wrote to me about this- "All that says is they think this life was worth nothing and deserved to die. Do they ever say, 'He earned his GED. He spent hundreds of hours reading the Bible?' Nope. These were human lives. They had families." 6/7

Until they see incarcerated people as fully human, ADOC will continue to direct attention away from its own myriad failings, granting themselves permission to deflect, deny, delay and obfuscate as more people die. They will do this on our dime and in all of our names. 7/7