Oakland panel calls on California to learn from film exposing abuse in Alabama prisons

The smell of popcorn drifted through Oakland’s Grand Lake Theater, but the tubs in the audience members’ hands sat untouched as people sat in tense silence, watching graphic scenes in an Alabama prison unfold before them. 

About 100 people attended the one-night screening last Wednesday of HBO’s “The Alabama Solution,” which included a panel discussion about corruption and abuse in the penitentiary system. The screening was organized by the nonprofit For the People, as part of a broader effort to spark conversation around criminal justice accountability and reform in California. 

The film, which received an Oscar nomination last year for best documentary, exposed brutal conditions in an Alabama prison after a prisoner’s beating death. Much of the footage was recorded on contraband cellphones over the course of six years by incarcerated men, who captured violent assaults by guards and unsanitary living conditions. Audience members recoiled at scenes depicting guards inflicting gruesome injuries on prisoners.

The recordings contributed to a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into unconstitutional conditions in Alabama prisons. They also exposed the human cost of these conditions and raised the broader question: Who is responsible when the system fails?

That question carried into the discussion that followed the Oakland screening, with a panel of state and local criminal justice leaders: Contra Costa County Chief Assistant District Attorney Simon O’Connell, former California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Secretary Kathleen Allison, For The People CEO Hillary Blout, and reentry specialist Alwin Smith. 

The speakers examined how similar systems operate in California and what responsibility prosecutors, corrections officials and policymakers share in creating and fixing the system.

“The system is broken,” said Allison, who served as secretary of Corrections and Rehabilitation from 2020 to 2023. During her tenure, the department implemented a body-camera pilot program requiring correctional officers at select prisons to record interactions with prisoners, an effort she framed as increasing oversight and transparency. 

Audience member Rahkii “Hyp” Holman, who works in criminal justice reform, argued that the prison system is rooted in a history of control, exploitation, and punishment rather than rehabilitation. “I don’t think the system is broken,” he said. “I think it’s working exactly the way it was designed to.” 

Blout, a former prosecutor in San Francisco, said change cannot happen without law enforcement acknowledging its role.

“People in law enforcement need to bear witness to what is happening, even if it’s not happening exactly the same,” she said. “They are part of an institution where this is happening in our country.” 

After 20 years in California prisons, Smith joined For The People, which works with prosecutors to reevaluate sentences and identify prisoners who may be safely released. He said his experience inside shaped how he views rehabilitation and reform. 

“The prison doesn’t practice or give rehabilitation,” he said, noting that programs that led to change were initiated by outside groups or inmates.

“I choose not to turn my eye from my past,” he added, but to let it drive me into the better future that we’re all looking for.” 

Doug Stringer, a retired prosecutor and defense attorney who attended the screening, found the film “extremely difficult but necessary to witness” because it confronted situations many would rather ignore. He said he was encouraged to see prosecutors publicly engage with resentencing efforts. 

“For prosecutors to be involved really lends credibility,” he said, calling it a “happy takeaway from an otherwise troubling film.”

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