Jobless in prison work release

Packed prisons & scant paroles means high unemployment

ADOC’s min-security “community work center” in Childersburg, AL

Anthony Allen thought the time left on his 15-year sentence would speed up once he made it to one of Alabama’s minimum-security work release prisons. He’d be able to leave and go to work outside the prison every day, something he hadn’t done in 12 years.

Instead, he currently passes the hours watching television, sitting on his bunk or sometimes walking in circles on a dirt path that surrounds the facility in the small city of Hamilton, 15 minutes from the Mississippi state line.

He’s been waiting for a new job assignment since December of 2023, when he was abruptly “laid off” from the furniture company that employed him in its warehouse. Anthony was given the news that he was no longer needed just hours after he fell and suffered a swollen knee and fractured hand.

Since then he’s been unemployed, suspended in uncertainty, along with at least 48 other men at Hamilton who also have no job.

“They just keep telling us to wait,” Anthony told me on one of several calls he’s made to me in the last two months. “There’s a bunch of people just sitting around this camp, and a lot of them are angry. They don’t want to be sitting around.”

“The camp,” is how most men inside the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) refer to whichever prison they are jailed in, but work release is no summer camp. It’s being compared to modern day slavery in a class action lawsuit filed in 2023 that alleges the state of Alabama is profiting off men like Anthony, as their labor, and sometimes their health and safety, is exploited.

Anthony has the lowest custody an incarcerated person can earn in ADOC, “minimum-community,” meaning Anthony is allowed to work outside the prison, unsupervised, for a private employer.

This custody level, according to ADOC’s own regulations, “is appropriate for those inmates who have demonstrated the ability to adjust to semi-structured environment and/or who are nearing the end of their incarceration in order to transition and reintegrate back into the community.”

But like so much inside ADOC, the mandate doesn’t match the reality. Even though Anthony has been considered minimum-custody for years, the parole board has denied his release twice, imposing the longest possible wait time of five years for his next parole consideration the last time they turned him down in 2020.

Anthony Allen with his mother, sister and nieces on a recent 4-hour pass

Anthony is even allowed to leave prison on 4-hour passes to visit with his family, a privilege only granted to the lowest custody prisoners with the best behavior. And yet, the system refuses to release him. And every day that he’s kept inside ADOC means another day of missed earnings and stalled potential to restart his life outside of prison.

“I’m trying to focus on the bigger picture,” he told me, “but honestly, this whole situation is starting to mess with my head.”

Hamilton Work Release houses 263 people, and with at least 48 men out of work, that means the unemployment rate at the facility is 18 percent.

It’s worse across ADOC’s entire work release system, which in the last four months of 2023 saw an overall unemployment rate grow to 26 percent, according to the most recently available data from January, 2024. That’s eight times higher than Alabama’s overall unemployment rate of 2.9 percent from January, 2024.

I looked at data from ADOC work release dating back to 2013. During that time, the unemployment rate has fluctuated between 11-30 percent, likely due to economic factors, but also according to how badly overcrowded the facilities are at a given time. The more overcrowded, the more unemployed people inside the prisons.

Anthony said right now there’s just too many people not getting out on parole and not enough jobs to go around. Just this past week, he told me, a large group of workers were laid off from the same furniture company that dismissed him last year. So the unemployment numbers I’m reporting, which are three months old, are likely much higher now.

Men and women in work release can’t actively seek employment for themselves. It’s up to a “job placement officer” to connect them with potential employers.

That lack of agency leads to restlessness, and a feeling of hopelessness and futility.

“People are edgy in here,” Anthony told me. “Some of these guys have a lot of time and they’re not getting out anytime soon.”

It doesn’t help that Alabama’s parole board in 2018 decided to stop paroling almost everyone who is eligible. As a result, minimum-security work facilities have seen a catastrophic drop in paroles in the last five years. In 2017, the state paroled over 1700 from minimum-security work prisons. Last year, only 106 were paroled.

ADOC refers to its 12 minimum-security work facilities as “community work centers,” but make no mistake, these places are prisons. Men and women inside may be allowed to leave the facility for work, or to visit their families on a home pass, but they must report back to the prison, or face a felony escape charge.

The rising overcrowding and unemployment inside ADOC’s work prisons is yet another symptom of a toxic and dysfunctional system, with understaffing and violence as the defining features.

And despite the U.S. Department of Justice suing the state over these conditions, Alabama leaders have done nothing meaningful to reform the system, while the crisis of rising deaths continues to grow. 2023 was the deadliest year in ADOC history.

Anthony’s story

Anthony told me he began working in the furniture company’s warehouse in August of 2023, shortly after he was transferred to Hamilton work release from Fountain correctional facility in Atmore.

He and the other men assigned to the company worked 10-hour shifts for $15 an hour, but because ADOC takes 40 percent of their earnings “to offset the cost of incarceration,” plus charges the men for transportation and laundry services, he would take home, at most, around $1000 a month.

Despite the wage garnishments and fees, he enjoyed the work and preferred earning money in the “free world” to sitting around in prison. Prior to being in work release, Anthony worked as an intern in a substance abuse program at Fountain and on a work crew doing “city work,” like weed eating and picking up trash for $2 a day.

Working at the warehouse allowed him to save some money, which wasn’t possible during his decade in medium-security. On a recent four-hour pass with his family, he was able to buy his twin nieces each an ice cream cone after they shared a meal at a Jack’s restaurant.

“That felt good,” he told me. It was the first time he’d met his little nieces in person. Up until this visit, they had only talked to him over the phone.

Anthony with his twin nieces, Kayla and Kaylee

“They jumped out of the car, ran and hugged me,” he told me. “It was very emotional.”

Anthony worked at the warehouse until December of 2023 when he was hurt on the job. He told me he slipped on his way to the bathroom and fell down hard on the cement floor. Anthony is a big man—over six feet tall and 260 pounds. He landed on a knee and his left hand and knew immediately he’d been injured.

“I was hurting pretty bad,” he told me. “It was hard to walk and my hand started swelling up.”

But instead of taking him to a doctor or hospital, Anthony said the warehouse supervisor sent him back to Hamilton work release. By the time he got back to the camp, Anthony’s knee and hand were both swelling and the pain was getting worse.

The nurse inside the facility took one look at his injuries and told an officer to take Anthony to the nearest hospital. Anthony said the doctor there diagnosed him with a fractured hand, wrapping it in a pressurized bandage, and then icing it. He also told Anthony that he could only handle light work duty for a few weeks while his injuries healed.

Back at Hamilton work release, Anthony received a knee brace and some ibuprofen for the pain. Then the job placement officer (JPO) called him into his office and told him the furniture company was laying him off. Anthony was stunned.

He asked the officer why he was being let go. Since no one else who worked at the plant was being laid off too, Anthony felt like he was being punished because he got hurt.

Anthony told me the JPO said the company suspected that Anthony had fallen on purpose, to get out of working.

“I didn’t understand that,” Anthony said. “Why would I, as big as I am, try to hurt myself? Why would I even think of doing that?”

Still, Anthony had little to no recourse. Even though ADOC’s administrative regulations state that “inmates will not be subject to exploitation” and that “Employer is responsible for Workmen’s Compensation type injuries,” Anthony has received no guidance on applying for workmen’s compensation payments.

I talked to Birmingham-based attorneys Alicia and Kenneth Haynes, who specialize in employment discrimination and civil rights litigation. They both said under the law, an injured worker is entitled to temporary disability payments and the right to come back to their job once they’ve recovered from their injury.

“You can’t terminate someone because they’ve been hurt on the job,” Alicia Haynes told me. “There’s a whole body of law on retaliatory discharge.”

Anthony put me in touch with another man at Hamilton work release who was employed by the same furniture company that laid Anthony off. He corroborated Anthony’s account of what happened and told me he was dismissed from his previous work release job after speaking up about his pay.

Anthony told me he’s seen many examples like this, where incarcerated workers are summarily dismissed after advocating for themselves or voicing concerns about work conditions.

“We really have no rights,” he said. “They can pretty much do whatever they want to us, because we’re locked up. We’ve got nowhere to go.”

Anthony has another parole consideration date in 2025 and will be eligible for mandatory early release in 2026. Because there is light at the end of the tunnel, he doesn’t want to make a stink and cause potential problems for himself. And so he sits and waits.

Anthony Allen in his senior portrait from Central High School in Tuscaloosa

Anthony, who recently turned 48, first started getting into trouble when he was a teenager in Tuscaloosa. His mom worked as a custodian at the University of Alabama. His stepfather worked at the local hospital. When they weren’t working, they went to church, but both worked a lot to make ends meet.

Anthony followed in the footsteps of young men who dealt drugs near the YMCA basketball court where they all played ball. He had noticed what they had, new Jordans and designer jackets, and became acutely aware of what he lacked.

“I'm watching them, what they’re doing,” he said. “A lot of their mamas was on drugs and they were fending for themselves.”

So Anthony’s drug dealing started small, with just weed, but he learned to hustle and over time, began making serious money. He bought the shoes, clothes and jewelry and later, a mid-1980’s Chrysler Fifth Avenue, and added some new rims.

“I just thought I really had it going on,” he said with a laugh.

Anthony Allen in an undated photograph

But Anthony also began getting arrested, and racked up a few drug charges as a youthful offender. His first felony charge that stuck as an adult came in 2005, when he unknowingly sold to police in a sting operation and they surrounded his car with guns drawn before taking him into custody.

“I had never seen that many police in my life,” he said. “That was really the biggest scare of my life.”

But it wasn’t enough to scare Anthony straight. He continued to deal drugs and began using them too. The money came easily and the hustle for him, felt natural. The felony case that led to his current sentence came in 2012 when he pleaded guilty to third degree robbery and agreed to a 15-year sentence, with four years to serve.

Once he got out, he was arrested again for drug possession in 2016 and sent back to prison to serve the entire 15 years.

“I just got tired in all this,” he told me. Anthony said he no longer uses drugs—”I don’t even smoke cigarettes or drink coffee,” and finally, after what feels like ten lifetimes of using and selling, he feels like he’s ready to stay straight. He’s written a business plan for a beauty and hair supply store, which he dreams about opening once he gets out. He said he wants to be there for his three kids, who are now all grown.

“I missed all three of their graduations,” he told me. “I’ve really missed everything. My entire childhood got taken by the streets. I really want to be there for my family now.”

Anthony Allen in an undated childhood portrait

Anthony now tries to mentor younger men in prison. He told me this when we had what I consider the most substantive conversation about crime prevention that I’ve had in years.

“Many of these young guys aren’t bad people,” he said. “They’ve just never had anyone listen to them. All they’ve heard is people putting down on them, so I try to get on their level and talk to them where they are.”

As long as he’s unemployed in work release, Anthony said he also tries to encourage other men around him to avoid falling into the trap of despair. He told me on a recent phone call that a man he knows at Hamilton recently got denied parole and set off five years.

“He’s already done 29 years and they just gave him another five like it was nothing,” he said. “I really didn’t know what to say to him. I just told him I’d be praying for him. That’s all I can really do.”