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As filmmakers the directors and his co-director entered Easterling prison in 2019, they witnessed a misleadingly pleasant atmosphere. Like the state's Alabama correctional institutions, the prison largely bans media access, but allowed the crew to record its annual volunteer-run barbecue. During film, imprisoned men, predominantly Black, danced and smiled to live music and religious talks. But behind the scenes, a different narrative emerged—horrific assaults, unreported violent attacks, and unimaginable brutality swept under the rug. Cries for assistance were heard from sweltering, filthy dorms. When Jarecki moved toward the voices, a prison official halted recording, claiming it was dangerous to interact with the men without a police escort.

“It became apparent that certain sections of the prison that we were not allowed to view,” the filmmaker remembered. “They use the excuse that it’s all about safety and safety, since they don’t want you from comprehending what is occurring. These facilities are like black sites.”

A Revealing Film Uncovering Decades of Neglect

That interrupted cookout meeting begins The Alabama Solution, a stunning new documentary produced over half a decade. Co-directed by Jarecki and his partner, the feature-length production reveals a shockingly corrupt system rife with unchecked mistreatment, forced labor, and extreme cruelty. It documents inmates' tremendous efforts, under constant physical threat, to improve situations deemed “unconstitutional” by the federal authorities in the year 2020.

Secret Footage Uncover Horrific Realities

After their abruptly ended Easterling tour, the directors made contact with men inside the Alabama department of corrections. Led by long-incarcerated organizers Bennu Hannibal Ra-Sun and Kinetik Justice, a group of insiders provided years of footage filmed on contraband cell phones. These recordings is disturbing:

• Rat-infested living spaces
• Piles of excrement
• Spoiled meals and blood-streaked floors
• Regular officer violence
• Men removed out in body bags
• Hallways of individuals near-catatonic on drugs distributed by officers

Council begins the documentary in half a decade of isolation as punishment for his organizing; later in production, he is almost beaten to death by officers and loses sight in one eye.

A Story of Steven Davis: Brutality and Secrecy

Such brutality is, we learn, commonplace within the ADOC. As imprisoned sources continued to collect proof, the directors looked into the death of an inmate, who was assaulted beyond recognition by guards inside the William E Donaldson correctional facility in 2019. The documentary follows Davis’s parent, a family member, as she pursues truth from a recalcitrant prison authority. She learns the state’s explanation—that Davis threatened officers with a knife—on the television. However several imprisoned observers told the family's lawyer that the inmate wielded only a plastic knife and yielded immediately, only to be assaulted by multiple officers regardless.

One of them, an officer, smashed the inmate's head off the hard surface “like a basketball.”

Following years of evasion, Sandy Ray met with Alabama’s “law-and-order” attorney general a state official, who informed her that the authorities would decline to file criminal counts. The officer, who had more than 20 individual lawsuits alleging brutality, was given a higher rank. The state covered for his defense costs, as well as those of every guard—part of the $51m spent by the state of Alabama in the past five years to protect officers from wrongdoing lawsuits.

Forced Work: A Modern-Day Exploitation System

This state benefits economically from ongoing mass incarceration without supervision. The Alabama Solution details the shocking extent and hypocrisy of the prison system's labor program, a compulsory-work arrangement that essentially functions as a modern-day version of chattel slavery. The system provides $450 million in products and work to the government annually for virtually minimal wages.

Under the system, imprisoned workers, overwhelmingly African American Alabamians deemed unsuitable for society, make $2 a day—the same pay scale set by the state for imprisoned workers in the year 1927, at the height of racial segregation. They work upwards of 12 hours for private companies or government locations including the government building, the governor’s mansion, the Alabama supreme court, and local government entities.

“Authorities allow me to labor in the public, but they refuse me to grant release to get out and go home to my loved ones.”

These laborers are numerically less likely to be released than those who are do not participate, even those considered a greater security threat. “That gives you an idea of how valuable this free labor is to Alabama, and how critical it is for them to maintain people imprisoned,” stated the director.

State-wide Strike and Continued Fight

The documentary concludes in an incredible achievement of organizing: a state-wide inmates' strike calling for better conditions in 2022, led by Council and his co-organizer. Contraband cell phone video shows how ADOC ended the protest in 11 days by depriving inmates collectively, assaulting Council, deploying personnel to threaten and attack participants, and severing contact from strike leaders.

A National Problem Beyond One State

The strike may have failed, but the lesson was clear, and beyond the borders of Alabama. An activist ends the documentary with a plea for change: “The abuses that are occurring in this state are taking place in every state and in the public's behalf.”

Starting with the reported violations at New York’s a prison facility, to California’s deployment of over a thousand imprisoned firefighters to the frontlines of the LA fires for below minimum wage, “you see comparable things in the majority of jurisdictions in the country,” said the filmmaker.

“This isn’t only one state,” said the co-director. “There is a resurgence of ‘tough on crime’ policy and rhetoric, and a retributive strategy to {everything