Death rate in Alabama prisons is five times the US average, and it's rising

Of the 325 people who died in Alabama prisons last year, Christopher Latham was among them. He served 18 years of a 21-year sentence for a first-degree robbery conviction before a group of men savagely beat him, leaving him brain dead.

“He was human. He wasn’t an animal," Latham's uncle Kevin Hyatt said. "He did not deserve..." Hyatt's voice broke as he discussed his nephew's violent death. "He didn’t deserve that."

By the time the prison system notified the family that Latham had been jumped, Latham was brain dead. Prison officials waited five days to tell his family, Hyatt said. “Even though Christopher was locked up," Hyatt said. "He was a human being. He made a mistake."

Last year, Alabama prison deaths rose from 270 in 2022, according to data from nonprofit advocacy organization Alabama Appleseed Center for Law & Justice. That brings the death toll to 1,045 people since April 2019, when the U.S. Department of Justice detailed prison conditions that violated the Constitution's eighth amendment against cruel and unusual punishment.

The state's prisoner mortality rate of 1,370 deaths per 100,000 people to the national average of 330 deaths per 100,000, meaning that Alabama has a death rate in its prisons of five times the national average, Alabama Appleseed said.

The nonprofit gathered the information from the Department of Corrections' statistical reports and records requests.

Frustrated families

On the same day that Latham died, Brian Rigsby died without his family by his side in the infirmary in Staton Correctional Facility.

A group of men jumped Rigsby in August. The prison system refused to treat Rigsby for weeks, his mother Pamela Moser said. Although Moser has not received his autopsy results, as a nurse, she said she thinks his wounds became septic after guards denied Rigsby care.

“I have my thoughts of what led to his death," Moser said. "The autopsy may say acute liver failure, but that’s not the whole story."

Moser called prison official after prison official, trying to get care for her son who she said appeared to have brain trauma from the beating. His voice slurred, and his conversations did not make sense.

Rigsby would say, "'Momma just listen to me. Just listen to what I’m saying,' but what he was saying wasn’t making any sense," Moser said.

When Moser eventually got to speak to the warden, she was told "I just don’t know how we let Brian get by us," Moser said.

“It’s just overwhelming that a system can be that sick and broken," Moser said.

After delays, prison officials transferred Rigsby to the hospital, where Moser and the rest of his family got to visit him. There, Rigsby found out he was dying. So, while he was in palliative care waiting to die, the warden transferred him to Staton.

“He died alone, and there was no reason for that. ... to just die alone because of their damn, stupid rules," Moser said, trailing off in tears.

More: Medical Neglect Families, advocates describe wide-scale medical neglect in Alabama prisons

Death toll surprises advocates

The 2023 death toll was higher than advocates expected, said Carla Crowder, the Alabama Appleseed's executive director.

This rise made clear to Crowder that Alabama prisons are "getting more violent and more dangerous, and probably their population is getting older and frailer and sicker," she said.

In state prisons, more than 7,000 people are more than 50 years old, and about 2,700 are more than 60 years old, Crowder said. Crowder said the state is locking people up for lengthy sentences and past the age when they are dangerous and capable of criminal behavior.

Providing care to an aging population comes at great cost to taxpayers, Crowder said.

For those who become injured, like Latham and Rigsby, the system is a cruel place.

Since their loved ones' deaths, both Moser and Hyatt have been active in the advocacy community. They want to make sure both Rigsby and Latham's stories are told. They want justice.

“They’re receiving death sentences in ADOC," Hyatt said.

More: Solitary Confinement Alabama prisoners endure 'horrific' conditions in solitary confinement

Alex Gladden is the Montgomery Advertiser's public safety reporter. She can be reached at agladden@gannett.com or on Twitter @gladlyalex.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Death rate in Alabama prisons is five times the US average