Alabama Public Television

You might say the folks who work at this state agency are the concierges of the crossbar hotel ... the butlers of the big house ... the proprietors of the pokey. The Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) confines, manages, and provides rehabilitative programs for convicted felons. It oversees a system of 29 prisons: five maximum security prisons (three of which house death rows), as well as five medium and 11 minimum security prisons and nearly a dozen work release, community work, and boot camp facilities. The ADOC is responsible for nearly 30,000 inmates. An overwhelming majority of them -- about 50% -- are incarcerated for personal crimes, nearly 30% for property crimes, and almost 20% for drug crimes.