Recently, the state of Alabama approved early releases for 369 inmates from various prisons across the state.
That means that, because of a bill passed in 2021 by state legislators that amended previous prison reform legislation from 2015, 369 convicted criminals will be returning to their counties of conviction this month, with only ankle monitors to keep up with them.
Obviously, this will affect counties across the state, and Walker County isn’t immune from the consequences of this decision.
Twelve of the early release inmates will be returning to Walker County, with charges ranging from drug manufacturing and possession, to burglary, assault and even rape.
One particular inmate benefitting from the early release was single handedly responsible for 41 burglaries right here in Walker County before enough evidence was obtained to arrest and convict him. Another kidnapped and sexually assaulted a female victim before dumping her in a remote location.
These are not “cookie cutter” inmates that were in jail for victimless crimes. Most of them had victims and we believe they deserve to serve every single day, hour, minute and second of their full sentence, because that’s the justice their victims deserved.
As if law enforcement’s job wasn’t hard enough, it’s decisions like these that make it so much harder. People complain about us arresting the same people over and over, but it’s situations like this that force us to arrest the same people multiple times. Some of these inmates are going to reoffend. We hope that they don’t, but history shows that the probability for re-offense is high.
Some of these inmates will commit worse crimes than they were originally incarcerated for, and all it will take is a simple snip of the scissors on the band of an ankle monitor. And when they do reoffend, it will cost more manpower, more resources, possibly more lives, and more of your tax dollars to track them down again when they should have still been in jail in the first place.
There is no doubt that the state of Alabama just turned more of their innocent citizens into eventual victims. There have been so many instances where inmates that were granted early release committed major or violent crimes during the time they should have still been incarcerated.
Innocent people, even police officers, have been murdered by someone who should have still been in prison. But irregardless the issues related to this early release, I want the people of this county to know that no matter how many violent criminals are pumped back into Walker County, your Sheriff’s Office, while hoping and praying they don’t reoffend, will be there to snatch them up and send them right back where they belong as soon as they commit another crime.
