December 29, 2025 – The 13th amendment to the U.S. Constitution (in 1865) outlawed slavery in America, with one exception: “ except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted ...” Alabama is taking advantage of that exception in a big way, according to “The Alabama Solution,” a documentary film.

According to the documentary, every year prisoners in Alabama produce $450 million in unpaid goods and services. In addition, prison guards make money selling illegal drugs, mobile phones and other contraband to the prisoners. This is modern slave labor. The state is willing to spend billions of dollars on new prisons and spend millions to settle lawsuits for the beatings and deaths of inmates, rather than reform the system.

Slave labor is so profitable in Alabama that the state has greatly reduced the rate of paroles in recent years in order to keep the prisoners locked up longer. If prisoners lose all hope of ever getting out of prison, what could possibly go wrong? Might they get desperate, thinking they have nothing to lose? While some prisoners advocate violence, others promote a strike to cut off Alabama's supply of free labor.

Cell phones are not allowed in prison, but are widely available because the guards sell them to prisoners. Much of this documentary is made up of cell phone audio and video calls coming from inside the walls of Alabama's 14 over-crowded under-staffed state prisons. One of the main movers and shakers among inmates is Robert Earl Council, nicknamed “Kinetik Justice.” He and fellow inmate Melvin Ray, nicknamed “Bennu Hannibal Ra-Sun” founded the Free Alabama Movement.

The Free Alabama Movement organized a strike, stopping all free work at prisons, but the strike was literally starved out, and failed in its goal of reforming the prisons. It did focus public attention on the prisons, however. Another method used by prisoners is an avalanche of legal filings by jailhouse lawyers, mostly self-taught prisoners. Some prisoners learn the law by participating in what they call the Halifax County program (probably named after educational programs at the Halifax Correctional Unit in Halifax, Va) described as “a self-help program created by prisoners for prisoners.”

Murders and beatings of prisoners by guards are documented in the movie. While most of the prisoners are black, others are white or Hispanic. One white prisoner that was beaten to death by guards is Steven Davis. The documentary follows Steven's mother, Sandy Ray in her extensive efforts to find out the circumstances of her son's death, and to get accountability and justice for him. She is stopped at every turn.

A witness to Steven Davis's death is James Sales, Steven's roommate. He refuses to talk to people outside the prison about what he saw when Steven was beaten to death, but he tells civil rights lawyer Hank Sherrod that he will talk to Steven's mother when he gets out of prison. Sandy waits impatiently for Sales' release. Shortly before his release, however, James Sales dies mysteriously. Sherrod says in the movie, “Most of the coincidences I run into [in the prisons] don't turn out to be coincidences.”

In addition to inmates, relatives of inmates and activists, the documentary also interviews a former prison guard who talks about conditions inside the prison and comments on Alabama's plans to address a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit over conditions in state prisons. Opponents of the state plan to build “mega prisons” say it will not address the problems of overcrowding and under-staffing.

From what is documented in this movie, it looks as though there ought to be a special place in hell for people claiming to be Christians who support and defend this prison system. The documentary also argues that similar abuses are happening in prisons in other states. Robert Earl Council, who was nearly beaten to death says in the movie, “Let me be clear when I tell you that the things that you see taking place in Alabama and worse are taking place in your state, and in your name.”

This effective documentary is the result of a six-year investigation by Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman, who were approached by inmates while recording an event in Easterling Correctional Facility in Alabama, which started them on the path to this film. It rates an A.

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