From The Tribune staff reports
SPRINGVILLE — Legislators aim to shutter a local prison here if the two new prisons proposed by Gov. Kay Ivey are approved during the current special session.
St. Clair County Correctional Facility is one of five prisons across the state that would be closed down in the bill currently being considered by Alabama lawmakers.
Other prisons slated to close are Elmore Correctional Facility and Staton Correctional Facility in Elmore County, Kilby Correctional Facility in Montgomery County and the Hamilton Aged & Infirmed Center in Marion County.
St. Clair is a maximum security prison that opened in 1983. It has had a reputation for violence, including a lawsuit filed over conditions and violent behavior that was filed in 2014 by the Equal Justice Initiative and a report that cited four murders at the prison over a seven-month period in 2018 and 2019.