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, earning everything from basic reading skills, to masonry carpentry, horticulture, barbering, cooking, and catering.
Next door is a multi-denominational chapel.
The cell blocks 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 criminal-justice system. They have railed against a philosophy of rehabilitation that 'coddles' inmates with too many amenities. Punishment is in vogue, along with hard labor and 'no frills' prisons, stripped of weight rooms, TV's, and computers. Alabama has already reinstituted the chain gang, forcing inmates to do hard labor in leg irons for up to ten hours a day.