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When filmmakers the directors and his co-director visited Easterling prison in 2019, they witnessed a misleadingly cheerful atmosphere. Similar to other Alabama correctional institutions, the prison largely bans media access, but allowed the filmmakers to record its yearly community-organized cookout. On camera, imprisoned men, predominantly Black, danced and smiled to musical performances and religious talks. But off camera, a contrasting narrative surfaced—horrific assaults, unreported violent attacks, and unimaginable violence swept under the rug. Cries for help came from sweltering, dirty housing units. When the director moved toward the sounds, a corrections officer halted filming, claiming it was unsafe to interact with the men without a police chaperone.

“It became apparent that certain sections of the prison that we were not allowed to see,” Jarecki recalled. “They use the idea that it’s all about safety and security, because they don’t want you from comprehending what is occurring. These prisons are like secret locations.”

A Stunning Film Uncovering Decades of Neglect

That interrupted cookout event begins The Alabama Solution, a stunning new documentary made over half a decade. Collaboratively directed by the director and Kaufman, the two-hour production reveals a shockingly broken institution rife with unchecked abuse, forced labor, and unimaginable cruelty. The film chronicles prisoners’ tremendous struggles, under ongoing danger, to improve conditions declared “illegal” by the federal authorities in 2020.

Covert Recordings Uncover Ghastly Conditions

After their suddenly terminated Easterling visit, the directors connected with men inside the state prison system. Guided by long-incarcerated organizers Melvin Ray and Robert Earl Council, a group of insiders supplied years of evidence recorded on illegal mobile devices. The footage is ghastly:

• Rat-infested cells
• Piles of human waste
• Spoiled meals and blood-streaked surfaces
• Routine guard beatings
• Men removed out in remains pouches
• Corridors of men near-catatonic on drugs distributed by officers

Council starts the documentary in five years of isolation as retribution for his organizing; subsequently in filming, he is nearly killed by guards and suffers sight in an eye.

The Case of Steven Davis: Violence and Secrecy

Such violence is, the film shows, standard within the prison system. As imprisoned sources continued to gather evidence, the directors investigated the death of an inmate, who was beaten beyond recognition by officers inside the William E Donaldson correctional facility in 2019. The Alabama Solution traces Davis’s mother, a family member, as she seeks answers from a uncooperative prison authority. The mother learns the official version—that Davis menaced guards with a weapon—on the news. But several incarcerated observers told the family's attorney that Davis held only a toy knife and yielded immediately, only to be assaulted by four officers regardless.

A guard, Roderick Gadson, smashed the inmate's skull off the concrete floor “like a basketball.”

After three years of obfuscation, the mother spoke with the state's “law-and-order” attorney general a state official, who informed her that the authorities would decline to file charges. The officer, who faced numerous separate legal actions claiming excessive force, was promoted. The state covered for his legal bills, as well as those of all other officer—a portion of the $51 million used by the state of Alabama in the last half-decade to protect staff from wrongdoing claims.

Forced Work: The Contemporary Slavery System

This government profits financially from continued imprisonment without supervision. The Alabama Solution describes the alarming scope and double standard of the ADOC’s labor program, a forced-labor system that effectively functions as a present-day version of historical bondage. The system provides $450 million in products and services to the state each year for virtually no pay.

In the program, imprisoned workers, mostly Black Alabamians considered unfit for the community, earn $2 a 24-hour period—the identical daily wage rate set by Alabama for incarcerated workers in the year 1927, at the peak of racial segregation. They work more than 12 hours for corporate entities or government locations including the state capitol, the executive residence, the judicial branch, and local government entities.

“They trust me to labor in the public, but they refuse me to give me parole to leave and return to my family.”

These workers are statistically more unlikely to be paroled than those who are not, even those considered a higher security threat. “That gives you an understanding of how valuable this low-cost workforce is to Alabama, and how critical it is for them to maintain individuals imprisoned,” stated the director.

State-wide Strike and Ongoing Struggle

The Alabama Solution concludes in an remarkable feat of organizing: a state-wide prisoners’ work stoppage demanding improved treatment in October 2022, led by an activist and his co-organizer. Illegal mobile video reveals how ADOC broke the protest in 11 days by starving inmates en masse, assaulting Council, sending soldiers to intimidate and attack others, and cutting off communication from strike leaders.

The National Issue Outside One State

The strike may have failed, but the message was clear, and beyond the state of Alabama. An activist ends the film with a plea for change: “The abuses that are taking place in this state are taking place in your state and in your name.”

From the reported abuses at New York’s a prison facility, to the state of California's use of over a thousand imprisoned firefighters to the danger zones of the Los Angeles wildfires for below minimum wage, “you see comparable situations in most states in the country,” said Jarecki.

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