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These are not photos of soldiers, but men incarcerated in an Alabama prison. They’re not at war, but they might as well be. The people Alabama locks away have been fighting a battle to survive for decades, serving time in a prison system that turns even short stays into hellish torture, or a death sentence.
WBRC received photos on a jump drive that arrived in an envelope with no return address, only a note inside titled “Read Me.”
I am a concerned officer at St. Clair Prison located in Springville, Alabama. This content is very disturbing and is currently located on the computer in the segregation office. What you will see in the photos are the many instances of violence at St. Clair Prison. These photos are never before seen by anyone outside of the prison staff. Pictures are very graphic, both dead and still living. These represent only a small portion of the injuries from inmate on inmate violence in the past three years. This prison is currently under a settlement agreement from a federal lawsuit brought by the Equal Justice Initiate and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
This agreement stands little to no chance of making this a safer place to work. The day to day treatment of these men does nothing but foster anger and despair. Until major fundamental changes take place in our sentencing and housing of these men it will only continue to get worse. I can’t help but wonder if the public knows just how bad these men are treated day after day and year after year.
The envelope contained over 2,500 photos, most far too graphic to share, and give an unprecedented and visceral window into what has been reported for years, but have never actually been seen. Alabama prisons are a slaughterhouse, where rape, stabbings, murder and extortion happen around the clock, as confirmed in the recent Department of Justice investigation.
A bloody sidewalk inside St. Clair Correctional Facility
Stabbing aftermath
Trail of blood after a fight inside a cell block
The aftermath of a suicide attempt
Blood splatter and writing in blood on floor in cell
Aftermath of assault in a cell
A burned ADOC jacket: The DOJ report cited incidents of prisoners setting fires in housing areas
An injured prisoner in infirmary
A bloody floor
Inside a cell
The aftermath of a fight in a cell block
The infirmary aftermath of a stabbing death
A prisoner’s injured hand
Injured prisoner in infirmary
Inmate stabbed 16 times
Inside a segregation cell
Homemade weapons are common in Alabama prisons
Confiscated weapons inside St. Clair Correctional Facility
A homemade knife used in an assault
A dilapidated cell at St. Clair Correctional Facility
A segregation cell where a prisoner attempted suicide
Writing in blood by prisoner with a mental illness
A second image of writing in blood by prisoner with a mental illness
A bloody prison uniform
The photographs received are crime scenes showing death in real time, men bleeding out on the exam table, close-ups of injuries, a knife jammed all the way to the handle in an unidentified man’s back. We also see the gruesome aftermath of murder, with men strangled or beaten in their own beds, some are tied up, one is kneeling with his hands bound behind his back.
There are suicides, slashed wrists, a man hanging in a cell. One mentally ill prisoner cut himself and wrote on the wall in his own blood. That prisoner testified about the incident in the trial over the system’s mental healthcare, which a federal judge found in 2017 to be “horrendously inadequate.”
We would like to thank WSFA for this content. Click here to view the entire comprehensive article.