Alabama legislators to look at victim notification system for county jails

Rep. Rex Reynolds, R-Huntsville, walks across the floor of the Alabama House of Representatives on April 16, 2024 at the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Alabama. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)

State officials met Tuesday in the first in a series of meetings to investigate how to create a victim notification system for individuals incarcerated at county jails.

The Joint Interim Study Commission on Local and County Victim Notification, which held an organizational meeting at the Alabama Statehouse, comes after the state established a victim notification system for those in the custody of the Alabama Department of Corrections.

“We really need to understand what is currently being done in these counties, what needs to be done in the future, and if the state is part of that funding solution or does that fall back on individual counties,” said Rep. Rex Reynolds, R-Huntsville, who was elected chair of the commission. Sen. Greg Albritton, R-Atmore, was elected vice-chair. Reynolds and Albritton respectively chair the Alabama House and Senate’s General Fund budget committees.

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The state has a contract with a private firm to have VINE (Victim Information and Notification Everyday), provide notices to crime victims on the status of perpetrators within the criminal justice system, but that system tracks only those within the custody of the DOC and the ABPP.

The terms of the contract, including the name of the company and the cost, were not disclosed. A message was left with the Alabama Attorney General’s Office and the ABPP Tuesday seeking comment on the contract.

The state had a system to track the status of those held in the custody of county jails, but it was no longer valid when the state initiated its own system for tracking people within the state’s custody. The state is identifying possible avenues for replacing the system.

Some counties also had a contract for VINE to provide notifications to victims of crimes within county jurisdictions. Since the state had a contract with the company providing the service, the company extended the service free of charge to counties without a contract.

As a result, some counties pay for VINE, but others do not. According to a map provided to the committee on Tuesday, many of the counties with VINE are concentrated in north central Alabama. Many of those without the system are isolated to the southern part of the state.

Many Black Belt counties operate without such a system. This includes Dallas, Marengo, Hale, Greene, Elmore, Macon and Montgomery counties.

“So the problem is now, what created this, is the state doing its own system, which is working very well for it is doing for the state, but it is not doing local notification for those inmates coming out of our county jails,” Reynolds said.

The state unveiled its automatic victim notification system at a March news conference that featured several law enforcement agencies and representatives from the court system.

In 2011, the Legislature passed a bill by former Sen. Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, who now oversees the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles, that created the Automated Victim Notification System and Implementation Task Force. The task force was charged with creating an integrated victim notification system.

In 2015, the Legislature passed a bill that granted early release for specific people in the custody of the DOC based on the amount of time they were in custody and on different levels. That bill only applied to those who would be incarcerated after that 2015 bill passed.

In 2021, lawmakers passed legislation sponsored by Rep. Jim Hill, R-Odenville, that made the 2015 bill retroactive.

Many, however, were not released on time after the Alabama Attorney General’s Office filed a lawsuit against DOC Commissioner John Hamm seeking to delay the release of inmates until victims were notified.

That revamped system provides updates on the status of individuals in the custody of the Alabama Department of Corrections and Pardons and Paroles — not people who are held within county jails.

“Today, it is working,” said Maury Mitchell, the state crime information director, at the meeting on Tuesday.  “It takes the original bill by Mr. Ward. So it is a notification required by Pardons and Paroles and Corrections when someone comes out or when several triggers happen.”

Members of the committee will continue to study the issue for the next several months. The study commission  has not set its next meeting date.

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