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As documentarians the directors and Charlotte Kaufman entered Easterling prison in 2019, they witnessed a deceptively pleasant scene. Similar to the state's Alabama correctional institutions, the prison mostly bans media entry, but allowed the filmmakers to film its yearly community-organized barbecue. During camera, imprisoned men, predominantly Black, celebrated and smiled to live music and religious talks. However off camera, a contrasting narrative emerged—terrifying assaults, hidden stabbings, and unimaginable violence concealed from public view. Cries for assistance were heard from overheated, filthy housing units. As soon as the director approached the voices, a prison official halted recording, claiming it was dangerous to speak with the men without a security escort.

“It was obvious that there were areas of the prison that we were not allowed to see,” Jarecki recalled. “They employ the excuse that it’s all about safety and security, because they aim to prevent you from comprehending what is occurring. These facilities are similar to black sites.”

The Revealing Film Exposing Years of Abuse

This thwarted barbecue event begins the documentary, a powerful new documentary produced over six years. Co-directed by the director and his partner, the feature-length film exposes a shockingly broken institution rife with unregulated abuse, forced labor, and unimaginable cruelty. The film documents prisoners’ herculean struggles, under constant danger, to improve conditions declared “illegal” by the US justice department in 2020.

Covert Recordings Reveal Ghastly Conditions

Following their suddenly ended prison tour, the directors connected with individuals inside the state prison system. Led by veteran activists Bennu Hannibal Ra-Sun and Kinetik Justice, a network of sources provided multiple years of footage filmed on contraband mobile devices. The footage is disturbing:

• Rat-infested living spaces
• Heaps of excrement
• Rotting food and blood-streaked floors
• Regular officer beatings
• Inmates removed out in body bags
• Hallways of men unresponsive on substances sold by officers

One activist begins the film in half a decade of isolation as retribution for his activism; subsequently in production, he is nearly beaten to death by guards and loses sight in one eye.

The Story of One Inmate: Brutality and Obfuscation

This violence is, the film shows, commonplace within the ADOC. As incarcerated witnesses persisted to gather evidence, the filmmakers investigated the death of an inmate, who was beaten unrecognizably by officers inside the Donaldson prison in October 2019. The Alabama Solution traces Davis’s parent, Sandy Ray, as she seeks truth from a uncooperative ADOC. The mother discovers the state’s version—that Davis threatened officers with a weapon—on the news. But multiple imprisoned witnesses informed the family's lawyer that Davis wielded only a toy knife and surrendered immediately, only to be beaten by multiple guards regardless.

A guard, an officer, stomped the inmate's skull off the hard surface “like a basketball.”

Following years of evasion, Sandy Ray spoke with Alabama’s “tough on crime” attorney general a state official, who informed her that the authorities would decline to file charges. The officer, who faced numerous individual lawsuits claiming brutality, was given a higher rank. The state paid for his defense costs, as well as those of every guard—a portion of the $51m spent by the state of Alabama in the past five years to protect officers from wrongdoing lawsuits.

Forced Work: A Contemporary Slavery Scheme

The state profits financially from continued mass incarceration without supervision. The Alabama Solution describes the alarming scope and double standard of the prison system's work initiative, a compulsory-work arrangement that effectively functions as a present-day mutation of chattel slavery. The system supplies $450 million in products and work to the government each year for virtually minimal wages.

In the system, imprisoned workers, overwhelmingly Black Alabamians considered unsuitable for society, make $2 a day—the identical daily wage rate set by Alabama for imprisoned workers in the year 1927, at the height of racial segregation. These individuals labor upwards of half a day for corporate entities or government locations including the state capitol, the governor’s mansion, the Alabama supreme court, and municipal offices.

“They trust me to work in the community, but they don’t trust me to give me release to get out and return to my family.”

These laborers are numerically more unlikely to be paroled than those who are do not participate, even those deemed a greater security risk. “This illustrates you an idea of how important this low-cost workforce is to Alabama, and how important it is for them to maintain individuals locked up,” said Jarecki.

State-wide Protest and Continued Struggle

The documentary concludes in an incredible feat of organizing: a system-wide inmates' strike demanding better conditions in 2022, led by an activist and Melvin Ray. Contraband mobile video reveals how prison authorities broke the protest in 11 days by starving inmates collectively, choking the leader, sending soldiers to threaten and attack others, and severing contact from organizers.

A National Problem Beyond One State

This protest may have failed, but the message was clear, and beyond the state of Alabama. Council concludes the film with a plea for change: “The abuses that are taking place in this state are happening in every region and in your behalf.”

From the reported violations at the state of New York's Rikers Island, to the state of California's deployment of over a thousand imprisoned emergency responders to the frontlines of the LA wildfires for less than minimum wage, “you see comparable situations in most jurisdictions in the country,” noted Jarecki.

“This is not just one state,” said Kaufman. “We’re witnessing a resurgence of ‘law-and-order’ policy and language, and a retributive approach to {everything