Groups are pushing for legislation targeting parole, incarceration and the death penalty.
By:Ralph Chapoco-January 9, 20266:01 am Article courtesy of: https://alabamareflector.com/
Barbed wire seen behind a fence at an Alabama prison. Criminal justice reform advocates expect to play defense in the 2026 Alabama legislative session but are also supporting bills targeting parole, prison conditions and the death penalty. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)
Criminal justice reform advocacy groups plan to support bills targeting parole, prison conditions and the death penalty in the 2026 Alabama legislative session.
But advocates also acknowledged that their main work may be against bills to increase criminal penalties, legislation likely to be attractive to lawmakers in an election year.
“We think it will be a tough year for sensible criminal justice policy for sure,” said Dev Wakely, worker policy advocate for Alabama Arise, in an interview on Tuesday. “I think a lot of the election-year grandstanding is going to be an issue, it usually is. Every four years, people will come up with these bad ideas and try to advance them. It is hard to get positive movement on bills that make common sense for reforms.”
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The ACLU of Alabama hosted a media briefing on Tuesday to discuss its legislative priorities for the coming session. Among them is HB 54, sponsored by Rolanda Hollis, D-Birmingham, which would allow women who are pregnant while incarcerated to remain on probation for several weeks after giving birth.
“There’s so much data about the immediate connection and what that does to the newborn in its first moments,” said A’Niya Robinson, policy and organizing director for the ACLU of Alabama, at the briefing. “Practically speaking, the mother needs time to rest and recuperate, so why send her back to a facility that has a known history of harming people, of people dying?”
The legislation states women must inform staff working in the jail that they are pregnant during the medical screening process and that they are tested for pregnancy as part of the screening process unless they decline to be tested.
HB 54 would require bail to be granted to pregnant women so long as the court determines they are not a threat to themselves or to the public.
“The court shall allow a pregnant woman to be supervised on a pre-incarceration term of probation for the length of her pregnancy and for 12 weeks after the birth of her child,” the bill states.
Hollis introduced the bill in the 2024 and 2025 sessions, but it did not come to a vote. Several lawmakers, particularly Republicans, expressed concerns that the bill would allow women who became pregnant to avoid incarceration.
“It is important to remember that, the 12 weeks postpartum, that is essentially going to be considered a probation period,” Robinson said. “The mother is still going to have to check in. Her motions are still going to be monitored. It is not people trying to avoid incarceration, it is really a delay in our opinion.”
Robinson also said that the legislation establishes additional penalties women fail to report to the facility where they are incarcerated on top of the original convictions or charges.
Nearly all the criminal justice reform groups also support legislation that limits the death penalty. Two were filed by Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa. One is HB 76, a constitutional amendment to abolish capital punishment in the state. A second bill, HB 70, would allow those who were sentenced to death by a judge over a jury’s recommendation of life without parole to pursue resentencing. This would apply to more than two dozen people currently on Alabama’s death row.
“It may be a bit of a tough lift, but it is a common sense policy,” Wakely said. “We should not have a different set of people sitting on death row when a jury pretty clearly found they did not deserve to die.”
Groups also expressed support for reforms to parole. HB 86, also from England, would give weighted consideration to parole applicants who tried to rehabilitate themselves while incarcerated.
“Ultimately, it would create a more systematic, transparent, danger to public safety approach,” said Jerome Dees, policy director for the Southern Poverty Law Center, in an interview on Tuesday regarding the parole reforms proposed in the legislation.
The groups also wanted to limit the likelihood of people who were granted parole returning to prison.
Alabama Appleseed also plans to support legislation that would preventing people on parole who have shown rehabilitation from returning to prison because of technical violations stemming from their parole or minor infractions.
Appleseed highlighted this issue in a report published in November titled “Taking a Life,” which described the burdens on those paroled out of life sentences, who can be returned to prison for small violations, even after remaining law-abiding after release.
“We are working on some legislation to make it a little easier for people who are doing well to stay in their communities and not get tossed back into the most violent prison system in the country,” said Carla Crowder, executive director of Alabama Appleseed.
