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When documentarians Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman entered Easterling prison in the year 2019, they encountered a deceptively cheerful scene. Similar to the state's Alabama's correctional institutions, Easterling largely prohibits media entry, but permitted the filmmakers to record its annual community-organized barbecue. On film, incarcerated individuals, predominantly Black, celebrated and smiled to live music and sermons. But off camera, a different story emerged—horrific assaults, hidden violent attacks, and unimaginable violence concealed from public view. Cries for assistance were heard from sweltering, dirty housing units. When the director approached the voices, a prison official halted filming, stating it was unsafe to speak with the men without a police escort.

“It was obvious that there were areas of the prison that we were not allowed to view,” the filmmaker remembered. “They use the idea that it’s all about security and safety, because they aim to prevent you from comprehending what they’re doing. These prisons are like black sites.”

A Revealing Film Exposing Years of Neglect

That thwarted barbecue meeting begins The Alabama Solution, a stunning new film made over half a decade. Collaboratively directed by Jarecki and his partner, the feature-length film exposes a shockingly broken institution rife with unchecked abuse, compulsory work, and extreme cruelty. The film chronicles inmates' tremendous struggles, under ongoing physical threat, to change conditions deemed “unconstitutional” by the US justice department in 2020.

Covert Footage Uncover Ghastly Conditions

Following their abruptly terminated Easterling visit, the filmmakers connected with individuals inside the state prison system. Led by long-incarcerated activists Melvin Ray and Kinetik Justice, a group of insiders provided multiple years of footage filmed on contraband mobile devices. The footage is disturbing:

• Vermin-ridden cells
• Heaps of human waste
• Spoiled meals and blood-stained floors
• Regular guard violence
• Inmates removed out in body bags
• Hallways of men near-catatonic on substances distributed by staff

One activist begins the film in five years of isolation as retribution for his organizing; later in filming, he is almost beaten to death by officers and suffers sight in an eye.

The Case of Steven Davis: Brutality and Obfuscation

Such violence is, the film shows, commonplace within the prison system. As imprisoned sources persisted to collect evidence, the directors investigated the killing of an inmate, who was assaulted beyond recognition by officers inside the William E Donaldson prison in October 2019. The documentary traces the victim's parent, Sandy Ray, as she pursues answers from a recalcitrant prison authority. She learns the official explanation—that Davis menaced guards with a weapon—on the news. However multiple imprisoned witnesses told the family's attorney that Davis wielded only a plastic knife and yielded at once, only to be assaulted by multiple officers anyway.

A guard, Roderick Gadson, smashed the inmate's head off the hard surface “like a basketball.”

Following years of obfuscation, the mother met with Alabama’s “tough on crime” attorney general a state official, who informed her that the authorities would decline to file charges. Gadson, who faced more than 20 separate legal actions claiming excessive force, was given a higher rank. The state covered for his defense costs, as well as those of all other officer—part of the $51m used by the government in the past five years to defend staff from wrongdoing claims.

Forced Labor: The Contemporary Slavery Scheme

This government benefits financially from ongoing mass incarceration without oversight. The film details the alarming extent and hypocrisy of the ADOC’s work initiative, a compulsory-work arrangement that effectively functions as a present-day version of historical bondage. This program provides $450 million in goods and services to the state annually for virtually no pay.

Under the system, imprisoned workers, overwhelmingly African American Alabamians deemed unsuitable for society, earn $2 a day—the identical pay scale established by Alabama for incarcerated workers in 1927, at the height of racial segregation. They work more than 12 hours for private companies or government locations including the government building, the executive residence, the judicial branch, and local government entities.

“They trust me to labor in the community, but they refuse me to give me release to leave and go home to my family.”

Such laborers are statistically more unlikely to be released than those who are not, even those deemed a higher public safety threat. “This illustrates you an idea of how valuable this free workforce is to Alabama, and how important it is for them to keep people imprisoned,” stated Jarecki.

Prison-wide Protest and Ongoing Struggle

The Alabama Solution concludes in an remarkable feat of activism: a system-wide prisoners’ strike calling for improved conditions in October 2022, led by an activist and his co-organizer. Contraband cell phone footage reveals how prison authorities ended the strike in less than two weeks by depriving prisoners en masse, assaulting the leader, deploying personnel to intimidate and beat others, and severing contact from organizers.

The Country-wide Problem Outside Alabama

The strike may have ended, but the message was clear, and beyond the borders of Alabama. An activist concludes the documentary with a call to action: “The abuses that are occurring in this state are taking place in every region and in the public's name.”

From the documented abuses at the state of New York's a prison facility, to California’s use of 1,100 incarcerated firefighters to the danger zones of the Los Angeles fires for below standard pay, “you see comparable things in most jurisdictions in the union,” said the filmmaker.

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