Viral Videos Take Us Inside Alabama Prison

a strike that continues today inside Alabama

prison

s dozens of inmates have died in Alabama

prison

s this year the justice department says Alabama prison conditions violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment CDs are the people to whom that they should let go, what's wrong? Welcome to today's strike. video thank you so much for clicking on it, this is probably one of the most important

videos

I've made all year. Today I'm going to expose the Alabama prison system and not only its prison system and its mistreatment and abuse of inmates, but also its failure on parole and its mismanagement of covid relief funds its privatized prison system and slave labor and a statewide inmate strike we have a lot to cover today.

I very rarely ask you to share my

videos

, but this video needs to be shared, please share this. video, any word you can think of on any social media platform, but please share this video if you are new here. Hello, my name is Jess. I am a person in long-term recovery who has actually been to prison, not just me. I have been in prison myself. I currently have a bachelor's degree in correctional program support services and am a board member of a prison reform nonprofit called the Freebird Movement. Prison reform is my passion, it's what matters most to me, it's the reason I started sharing my story on the internet.

I'm incredibly grateful that so many of you have subscribed to the channel and trusted me to make these types of videos. I am well aware that my platforms on the Internet are quite substantial. Take the responsibility of having these large platforms very seriously. I say it to say this. I am going to do my best to articulate what is happening in Alabama to the best of my knowledge. Many times I speak badly or forget to say things. in videos and I just want you to know that I'm doing the best I can if I forget something or leave something out or if you think there's an important detail that I should have mentioned, please put it in the comments section.

Below in the description box, I will also leave resources for you to do your own research on what is happening in Alabama. A petition you can sign and people you can write to begging them to change their ways. It is private. prison system, so let's see what we can do, but without further ado, let's get this started. There are currently 158 private prisons in the United States. What is a private prison? A private prison is a prison that houses inmates are like any other prison, except the goal of private prisons is to make a profit. The private prison system is operated by private companies that have government contracts.

So why do we have 158 private prisons that are designed specifically for profit in America? It's crazy, it's because of the overcrowding, a stupid crowd, it was very crowded, so to solve the overcrowding, the government thought you know what we should do, we should outsource, so here come these private companies and say, "Hey, I see a demand, you really need facilities.” the government says yes we do it, the private corporations say I can feel that need for their inmates to be in our facilities so they won't be on every street thus meeting their demand and we have our best interest.

Deep down, what is generating profits now that the goal of a prison is profits, who do you think suffers with the private prison system? They get paid on both sides, the government gives them money for their government contracts and then they make money. Inmates work to make things like, say, office chairs, license plates, uniforms, so that billion-dollar corporations will pay them. Inmates are paid pennies on the dollar to make a 700 office chair that we can sell like Shopify, yes what's even more disgusting are the inmates. they want to work inmates want to work they want to earn money they want to have job training so how does this relate to Alabama?

Well, Alabama has a lot of private prisons and their private prison practices say three times as fast too. Very sorry. I have a cold I'm sure you can hear that inmates suffer when they have to work all day to earn 12 a month or whatever ridiculous salary it is. Actually, I should look it up first. I shouldn't just say something randomly. number a second, so normally inmates are paid between 14 cents and two dollars an hour, but in some states like Arkansas they don't even have to pay their inmates anything, that's right. I was paid zero dollars to work in the laundromat 12 hours a day and To be completely honest, I didn't really like that I cared because it's not like I was making office chairs or license plates on a factory line for billion dollar companies. of dollars, you know what I mean, it was a job in a prison complex and it was necessary to run the prison you have to do the laundry you have to work in the kitchen or in medicine or wherever to run the prison we need Sally inmates Port like who do you think is mopping the hallways properly for the inmates to run the facility in case you were wondering? how it's legal for billion dollar companies to pay inmates 16 cents an hour to make office chairs and it's because of our 13th Amendment.

Our 13th Amendment literally says that slavery is illegal, yes, except when imprisoned, let me read to you the 13th Amendment that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except as punishment for Crime where the party has been duly convicted shall exist in the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction and that says slavery is not allowed but if you are a prisoner you can be a slave as long as they have been convicted of a crime we can exploit them as much as we want and pay them as little as we want sometimes no money we have two problems here that amendment stinks capitalism that puts profits before people Now I mentioned that Alabama and its private prison systems get paid twice, right, they get paid with government funds and they also get paid for all the work of the inmates and everything they earn.

Now let's go to Castillio Vaughn and I have to remind you guys. that the image I'm about to share is very, very bad and is graphic in nature, but Castilio Vaughn went

viral

a few weeks ago and essentially his medical condition is that he had a large part of his large intestine removed because he was starving, I was told. that Castilio Vaughn was

take

n to the infirmary and is receiving medical help but that is not confirmed that is just something I saw in the comment sections of tick tock so I can't confirm that no one has come forward and let me know That's it a fact but that's just what I heard so I really hope it's real and he's getting the help he needs but Castilio isn't the only person who has gone

viral

for his physical well being and his health is rapidly declining .

There have been other inmates who have come forward on video from an Alabama prison and said we are starving. We are hungry. My health is deteriorating. I'm not well. This is not OK. They are starving us. This is an emergency video on behalf of Shannon Hopkins, who appreciates all the emails and other things that were sent to the nurses and the commission office, etc., they saw it, she came to the front and saw the tragedy. The tragedy behind it here is that the nurse practitioner is missing something. He spilled his name, not so that W-a-u-g-8 could be seen in public, he verbally cursed him and refused to see him and also stated that he had no money in his gun account as his reasons for turning him over he did not give him any medicine he sent him totally flip him didn't feed him they got the call from Montgomery they called him over the nurse practitioner w-a-u-g-h in this same nurse practitioner has a habit of verbally abusing inmates who has medical needs or needs medical assistants didn't see him coordinator nurse coordinator Kelly Rice, who is the coordinator at the state prison also agreed and she is the nurse who is too disciplinarian, she calls a dress disciplinary action, she thought that, um, that the nurses' actions were fine and good.

Nurse Parker and Nurse Loan are also abusive nurses at state record sellers. You have these four nurses who, in my opinion, I believe are responsible for the six deaths that occurred, not from drug overdoses, nothing of that nature, there were six. deaths due to medical neglect six inmates died from cancer and other mistreatment or lack of treatments um dealing with inmates at uh at the State Correctional Facility this is a serious matter this man is still in pain this man still needs help please get uh uh we need more emails and we now need you to have the nurse's name.

We need these nurses to

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charge immediately and that's all I can say. This is crazy. I've seen different reports on the timeline of this, but everyone. What I can see now is that after the inmates started striking because of the living conditions they endure after the strike, they were punished by not receiving visits and having their meals cut from three to two and the state's response to this is that because of our labor shortage due to the strike, we don't have enough people to feed them three times a day, but you can look at both ends, you have a lot of money to feed these prisoners because they are making ridiculous amounts of profit and still so you are serving them food like this.

They had 30 of their calories taken away. If they cut back on food and restrict visitors and eliminate visitors, then they are probably restricting other things like the phone. calls and police station. I've made a lot of videos in the past talking about how you need money in prison to survive. I mean, having to swallow food that looks like this and being hungry all the time is not right, the punishment has to be tailored to the needs. crime, there are so many human rights violations when talking about private prisons, but starving them to the point of having to remove their large intestine is simply incomprehensible and people can scream all day as if they should not have broken the law.

Okay, great, but the punishment for stealing, for stealing, for drugs, because it's not murder, is failing everywhere and every time I go to YouTube, the views on these videos are like 200 views, 400 views, like people weren't watching these videos and that's just it. it helps them get away with it if we're not talking about it if they silence the inmates and continue to exploit them and starve them and then no one talks about it then guess what they get a pass which is what they've done for decades. They expect people to be like you just shouldn't have broken the law oh you shouldn't have been an inmate, they expect you to react that way because if we're all arguing back and forth, well you just shouldn't have been to prison, You shouldn't have broken the law, it's their own fault if we're fighting and we don't come together, nothing changes, everyone knows the government knows what they're doing, the state of Alabama knows what they're doing.

They know they are starving these people, they are hurting these people, their health is deteriorating and they refuse to do anything about it. Their response to the strike was to starve them and cut off their visits, so thousands of inmates went on strike. Because of these conditions, the governor called the inmate's demands unreasonable and some of them are far reaching, some of them are very difficult to do, it is not something that a governor would have the power to do, a governor has the power to Forgiving people can do. Many would probably like to be governor, but they don't have the power to repeal laws and write new laws, pass bills as if there is a whole process for that right, so some of the things inmates are asking for are a little bit beyond out of your reach, so let's go over the demands together.

The first is very reasonable. It says to establish mandatory parole criteria to guarantee parole to all eligibles who meet those criteria. Sorry, it's not something that apparently isn't the case anymore. tops the list because where there is a prison there should probably be a parole system that can accommodate people coming out and there has to be criteria like what is that, it's not one thing, the second thing, again, it's very difficult for a governor not to can do. this by itself, but it is to repeal Alabama's habitual offender law that requires stricter punishment for those with prior felony convictions, among other mandates, which is similar to the three strikes law, although not as severe if you are a habitual criminal you are going to be. serving a lot more time, so I get it, I like where they're thinking about that, but again, that's not something you can probably achieve with aprotest or a strike, especially when you are in prison, many people are going to have to unite for that the third is to eliminate life imprisonment without parole sentences that will never happen that will never happen there is a reason for life without parole that reason they are grotesque crimes the person who has committed these unthinkable crimes of violence and who knows what they should probably never say that if you're a dangerous person and you've heard a lot of people you probably shouldn't go to prison, like life without parole will never go away just reduce the minimum of 30 years. for juvenile offenders to no more than 15 years before they are eligible for parole.

I understand that, um, minors is a completely separate thing, but again, I don't think this is something that a governor can do simply to end the strike. Create a review board to oversee. the Alabama Office of Pardons and Parole, reasonably fixed type of parole, just fix it, streamlines the medical license review process, so apparently there is no policy for medical license.and permits are very difficult to getting a permit in prison is when you leave the facility to receive medical care go to a funeral those are like unicorns in the prison system in the United States ensuring that eligible people receive good time incentives reduced time from a sentence earned through good behavior again that is a prison policy that is very easy to accommodate how is that not important?

Why is probation so complicated? Wrongful Convictions Willie Williams is an inmate housed at the Stanton Correctional Facility. He described the missions as inhumane and dirty and said there was mold throughout the facilities. Sorry, what's mold? Are you serious? You know how dangerous it can be. He also said. there is no compassion, there is no rehabilitation, there is no training, there is, simply nothing, there are no services that really help these inmates, their demands are impressive to improve the living conditions and quality of life of the inmates and Alabama has failed and again. Again even acknowledging what's really happening inside these prisons because if you address the crisis and say this is what's really happening, guess what people are going to get angry and they're going to have to take full responsibility for violating human rights? over and over again, so yes, a couple of demands a little out of my league, but it's not unreasonable to say I don't want mold in my cell, it's making me sick.

Don't take my large intestine out of hunger and give us some. kind of guidelines for parole and good time don't deny us medical care because we're dying just help us a man I was reading about the other day his name is Luke White died at the Bibb Correctional Facility died there he was They just found him unconscious in his cell, what's really sad is that he didn't need to be there, he really didn't need to be there and the family members were saying, "I don't think he's going to make it out alive." I think he will make it, please give him parole.

So Luke robbed a gas station in 2012. Well, in 2016, a judge revoked his probation and sent him back to prison. Do you want to know why it's because he didn't go to court and pay? He declares his fees for parole now. I don't know what was going on in his life at the time, but you literally have to pay to be on probation, you have to pay restitution court costs and fines, which is very difficult to do as a felon in In 2020, your The family was so afraid that he would not survive and in 2022 he died. Alabama's parole system is also a huge failure because sometimes the parole board just says no to please everyone who shows up for parole. board, they're like no, no, no, Pro to you, no, you look a little, you look a little suspicious, I'm just going to say no, like they just gave probation to Nobody, why do you think he do they do so well?

They do it because the more people they have in their prison system, the more profits they make because they get desks and chairs that they can sell on Shopify. Their entire system is designed on the principle of getting more bodies into our facilities than you would think if it were your butt. line is the only thing they care about, then at least they would feed them well, food costs money so they have to eliminate that and that's the real problem with privatized prisons is that they are so greedy and money hungry that the food they get like it costs too much. starving okay everyone is starving so go one step further they also don't train officers on how to handle literally anything and that is a problem because now we are creating not only a danger for the inmates but also a danger to staff because guess who is going to feel the wrath of an inmate, riot or strike, it's the staff members who are probably overworked, underpaid and exhausted, none of that makes sense and based on all my research , I don't even believe that private prisons can be investigated for human rights violations based on the contracts our government gives them and because they are also private.

Our prison system in this country is so utterly flawed. Shame. Human rights violations. And I can go on and on. Did you know that in 2003? George Bush Sr. wrote a 126-page commission detailing a law that we now call Priya, it's the Prison Rape Elimination Act because so many people were being raped in our prison system that he had to sign it into law and it can't be done anymore. that. Let's talk about this $725 million Covid Relief Fund that Alabama is using to build two super prisons. Alabama, which has the highest coronavirus death rate in the United States, is planning to use coronavirus relief funds provided by the federal government to build prisons. how Alabama is one of the states that ended covid unemployment benefits earlier than it was supposed to, because why would they use that money to help people in their state when they could use it to imprison people in your state?

Alabama Lawmakers began a special session on a $1.3 billion construction plan that would use federal pandemic relief funds to pay part of the cost of building massive new prisons. Governor K Ivy has touted the plan to build three new prisons and renovate others as a partial solution to the state's long-standing problems in its prison system, so why are they using $725 million of Covid relief money to build prisons well? That's because Wall Street backed out on building it, you know why it looks bad, crazy, right, Wall Street is the epicenter of let's just make money, like bring your rating here Jordan Belfort right, they would say no, no, we're fine, we're fine and I forget the name of the company I'm going to put on the screen here they backed out because they're like you know what private prisons are running so we're not going to make any money off of this a lot of the executives in the prison systems of Alabama are actually using the money they're supposed to use to feed inmates for similar cars and I know I'm very passionate when it comes to prison reform and the things that are happening in our prison systems, but I'm not Being dramatic, I'm not exaggerating, I'm not making it up, this is really happening, I know that many of the things I've said in this video are hard to swallow.

It's very hard to look at our system and think you know what there's really no justice because prosecutors just want to win, a judge doesn't. Let's say I made a mistake like 200 times um and these people are unjustly imprisoned, people in positions of power in this country often just want to win and make money, especially when we're built on capitalism. Now I'm not talking nonsense about capitalism. I'm just saying that when you put profits before people, people die. I don't know how the people who run the Alabama prison system can sleep at night. There are some things you shouldn't make money from, like inmates, and I know that. many times people say like our tax dollars our tax dollars our taxes listen we have to pay taxes regardless okay, that money is going out regardless, it should make you angry as a taxpayer to think that not only are our tax dollars going out to abuse, mistreatment and murder of inmates, that same place that takes our tax money is also making disgusting profits at the expense of those who suffer and there is no accountability, many times it is completely swept under the rug for many reasons, you know one.

One of the reasons is that this is very difficult to digest, it is very difficult to think about it, so it is much easier to say just don't break the law, but what we are missing here is that our entire system is corrupt, it is evil . there is no justice, there are no real consequences for many people in power, so what do we do, what do we do, we write to the governor of Alabama, we share videos like this and all the other videos you can find in Alabama, vote , protest and let your voice be heard, we need to end the privatization of prisons, something that should not exist in this country.

Private for-profit prisons must be abolished immediately. Alright, guys. I'm going to finish today's video. Here are links to everything I mentioned in the description box. from this video as always I love you guys stay safe stay in recovery whatever that looks like to you do your own research and educate yourself about the prisons in this country and how horrible they are and I'll see you in my next one foreign