"The Alabama Solution": Oscar-Nominated Film Uses Prisoner Cellphones to Expose Deadly Prisons
February 16, 2026
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23:46Now Playing"The Alabama Solution": Oscar-Nominated Film Uses Prisoner Cellphones to Expose Deadly Prisons
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Three activists — Robert Earl Council, Melvin Ray and Raoul Poole — featured in the Oscar-nominated documentary The Alabama Solution were placed in solitary confinement last month in what advocates believe is retaliation for their role in exposing the abuses of the state's prison system and for helping to organize a prison labor strike. We're joined by three guests who worked on the documentary: director Andrew Jarecki, investigative journalist Charlotte Kaufman and Tiffany Johnson Cole, a childhood friend of and attorney for Robert Earl Council. Johnson Cole has filed a lawsuit against her client's transfer. She says Council, Ray, Poole and other incarcerated activists have "put themselves in harm's way in an effort to bring about change in a system that is truly cruel and inhumane."
The Alabama Solution features footage clandestinely shot on contraband cellphones wielded by men incarcerated by the fifth-largest state prison system in the United States. The footage includes the apparent cover-up of the beating death of an incarcerated man by prison guards. "Any authoritarian administration does not want you to see what's going on inside," says director Andrew Jarecki. "They can't really continue to do what they're doing if there's enough public pressure, which is one of the reasons why Alabama is so anxious about this film." Kaufman adds that the problem extends throughout the country. "We spend $80 billion a year on prisons and jails and incarcerate 2 million people, and yet the public's not allowed to see in and evaluate whether the system is fulfilling its mandate."
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Guests & Subjects Covered
Claims
23 claims extractedAlabama prisons have record death rates hidden from public
Journalists denied access to U.S. prisons while state avoids accountability
Prison guards responsible for inmate deaths
Alabama Attorney General denies systemic prison problems
Incarcerated activists risking lives to expose prison abuses
U.S. prisons operate as secret sites inaccessible to journalists
Contraband phones used to expose systemic prison secrecy
Supreme Court allows wardens to deny journalist prison access
Alabama authorities fear public exposure of prison conditions
Public denied access to evaluate $80 billion prison system
Prison system conceals deaths from families and public
Prison officials cover up guard-inflicted death with false narrative
Prison staff whistleblower reveals guard-committed murder
Prison officials threaten families to suppress media access
Alabama prisons severely understaffed with exhausted officers
Incarcerated activists transferred in retaliation for protected speech
Alabama profits $450 million annually from unpaid prison labor
Incarcerated people leased to corporations while paid $2/day
Prison system perpetuates slavery through forced labor economics
Incarcerated activists risk harm exposing inhumane prison conditions
Governor proposes new prisons as solution to deadly conditions
Alabama Attorney General denies humanity of prison crisis
1,500 deaths in Alabama prisons; activists threatened for speaking
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