“we feel like slaves.”
As paroles drop to unprecedented lows, despair grows in Alabama’s minimum-security work centers
Published by Alabama Smart Justice December 8, 2020
By Beth Shelburne
Red Eagle Community Work Center was supposed to be the last stop before David Files came home. He’d been there for almost two years, building a positive work record through the menial jobs he was assigned- picking up trash, mowing grass, cleaning streets- each paid him just $2 a day. But David, who turned 40 on October 15, was glad to do the work because it allowed him outside the walls of jail or prison for the first time since he was 21-years old.
“I like to work, so I looked at it as an opportunity to get some fresh air and get in shape,” David told me on one of several phone calls we’ve had in the last few months. “I thought they were testing me to be released.”