Tasteful couches sit in the corners. Well-dressed employees walk up and down the stairs, speaking in hushed, respectful tones. Beyond, on the prison grounds, are a broad expanse of well-tended lawn and distant athletic fields. Inmates walk alone or in pairs along the concrete pathways, offering greetings as they pass. Across the compound inmates sit quietly in classrooms, learning everything from basic reading skills to masonry, carpentry, horticulture, barbering, cooking, and catering.
Next door is a multi-denominational chapel.
The cellblocks are cramped but clean and orderly, with a weekly inspection score posted on the wall. This prison and others like it are the targets of a fierce campaign that is changing the shape of the U.S. criminal-justice system. Alabama has already reinstituted the chain gang, forcing inmates to do hard labor in leg irons for up to ten hours a day. State administrators and sheriffs, sniffing the political wind, have begun to crack down, cutting educational and treatment programs, making prison life as harsh as possible. Yet McKean, by several measures, may well be the most successful medium-security prison in the country.