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As documentarians Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman entered Easterling prison in 2019, they witnessed a misleadingly pleasant scene. Similar to other Alabama correctional institutions, the prison mostly bans journalistic entry, but allowed the filmmakers to film its yearly volunteer-run barbecue. On film, incarcerated individuals, predominantly African American, celebrated and smiled to musical performances and sermons. But off camera, a contrasting narrative surfaced—terrifying beatings, hidden stabbings, and unimaginable brutality concealed from public view. Cries for help were heard from sweltering, filthy housing units. When the director approached the sounds, a corrections officer stopped recording, stating it was dangerous to interact with the inmates without a police chaperone.

“It became apparent that certain sections of the prison that we were not allowed to view,” Jarecki recalled. “They use the idea that everything is about safety and safety, since they don’t want you from comprehending what is occurring. These prisons are like black sites.”

The Revealing Documentary Uncovering Years of Abuse

That interrupted cookout meeting begins The Alabama Solution, a stunning new film made over six years. Co-directed by the director and his partner, the feature-length film exposes a shockingly corrupt institution rife with unregulated mistreatment, forced labor, and unimaginable cruelty. It chronicles inmates' herculean efforts, under constant physical threat, to change conditions declared “unconstitutional” by the US justice department in the year 2020.

Secret Recordings Reveal Ghastly Realities

After their abruptly ended Easterling tour, the filmmakers connected with individuals inside the state prison system. Guided by veteran organizers Melvin Ray and Kinetik Justice, a network of insiders supplied years of evidence recorded on contraband mobile devices. The footage is ghastly:

• Vermin-ridden cells
• Heaps of excrement
• Rotting meals and blood-streaked surfaces
• Routine officer beatings
• Inmates carried out in body bags
• Corridors of men unresponsive on substances sold by officers

Council starts the documentary in half a decade of solitary confinement as retribution for his organizing; subsequently in filming, he is nearly beaten to death by guards and suffers sight in one eye.

The Story of Steven Davis: Violence and Obfuscation

Such violence is, the film shows, standard within the ADOC. While incarcerated witnesses persisted to gather evidence, the filmmakers looked into the killing of Steven Davis, who was beaten unrecognizably by guards inside the Donaldson prison in October 2019. The documentary traces the victim's mother, Sandy Ray, as she seeks truth from a recalcitrant prison authority. She learns the state’s explanation—that Davis menaced guards with a weapon—on the television. But several incarcerated observers informed the family's lawyer that the inmate wielded only a plastic utensil and yielded at once, only to be assaulted by four officers anyway.

A guard, an officer, smashed Davis’s skull off the hard surface “repeatedly.”

Following three years of evasion, Sandy Ray spoke with the state's “tough on crime” attorney general a state official, who informed her that the state would decline to file charges. The officer, who faced more than 20 individual lawsuits alleging excessive force, was promoted. The state covered for his legal bills, as well as those of every guard—part of the $51 million used by the government in the last half-decade to protect staff from wrongdoing claims.

Forced Labor: A Contemporary Exploitation System

This state profits financially from continued mass incarceration without oversight. The Alabama Solution describes the alarming scope and hypocrisy of the ADOC’s work initiative, a compulsory-work system that essentially functions as a present-day version of chattel slavery. This program provides $450m in goods and work to the government annually for almost minimal wages.

Under the system, incarcerated workers, overwhelmingly African American residents deemed unfit for the community, earn $2 a 24-hour period—the same daily wage rate established by Alabama for imprisoned labor in the year 1927, at the peak of racial segregation. They labor more than half a day for corporate entities or government locations including the government building, the governor’s mansion, the judicial branch, and municipal offices.

“Authorities allow me to labor in the community, but they refuse me to give me parole to get out and return to my loved ones.”

Such workers are numerically less likely to be released than those who are do not participate, even those considered a higher public safety risk. “This illustrates you an idea of how important this free workforce is to the state, and how important it is for them to keep people imprisoned,” said Jarecki.

State-wide Strike and Continued Struggle

The documentary culminates in an remarkable feat of organizing: a system-wide inmates' work stoppage calling for better conditions in October 2022, led by Council and his co-organizer. Contraband mobile footage shows how ADOC ended the protest in 11 days by starving prisoners collectively, assaulting the leader, deploying soldiers to threaten and attack others, and severing communication from strike leaders.

A Country-wide Problem Outside Alabama

The strike may have ended, but the lesson was evident, and beyond the borders of the region. Council ends the documentary with a call to action: “The things that are taking place in Alabama are taking place in every state and in your name.”

From the documented violations at the state of New York's a prison facility, to California’s use of 1,100 imprisoned emergency responders to the frontlines of the LA fires for less than minimum wage, “you see similar things in most jurisdictions in the country,” said Jarecki.

“This isn’t just one state,” added the co-director. “We’re witnessing a resurgence of ‘tough on crime’ approaches and language, and a retributive approach to {everything