"The Alabama Solution" May Change How You See Prisons (w/ Andrew Jarecki & Charlotte Kaufman)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Bulwark Takes — "The Alabama Solution" May Change How You See Prisons

Host: Sonny Bunch (Culture Editor, The Bulwark)
Guests: Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman (Co-directors, The Alabama Solution)
Date: February 20, 2026

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Overview

In this episode of Bulwark Takes, host Sonny Bunch speaks with documentary filmmakers Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman about their Oscar-nominated HBO Max documentary The Alabama Solution. The film exposes the realities inside Alabama’s prison system, including secretive administration, systemic violence, and the organizing efforts of incarcerated activists. The conversation explores documentary ethics, the unique access the filmmakers obtained (including cell phone footage sourced from prisoners themselves), and the broader implications of mass incarceration on society.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: Perspective and Approach

• Sonny Bunch openly admits he is not a “prison reform guy,” but the film moved him because it humanizes incarcerated people and starkly shows prison conditions ([02:21]).
  • Quote:

    "Watching this really, really moved me, because... people who commit crimes should be in prison, but they should also be treated humanely." — Sonny Bunch ([02:21])

2. Origin of the Documentary

• Jarecki’s prior documentary work (“Capturing the Friedmans”) exposed him to the secretive nature of U.S. prisons ([03:35]).
  • Alabama’s prison system had seemed closed off, but access was granted initially to film a Christian revival event.
  • The 'facade': Inmates confided in filmmakers that the event was staged and urged them to investigate real conditions ([03:35–06:06]).

  “All most documentaries that you watch about prisons only happened because the prison has allowed the filmmakers to come in and can control what they're seeing.” — Charlotte Kaufman ([06:06])

3. The Power of Contraband Cell Phone Footage

• Cell phones inside allowed real, uncensored documentation by prisoners — bypassing state narrative and institutional secrecy ([11:18]).
  • Quote:

    “Getting access to that footage meant that we were liberated from the approved narrative and from the approved visuals and access that, you know, otherwise we would have been constrained by.” — Charlotte Kaufman ([11:18])

  • Filmmakers built trust by being available anytime prisoners could safely communicate.

4. Documentary Ethics and Visual Language

• The filmmakers embraced the rawness and imperfection of cell phone footage as an intentional aspect of the film’s visual language ([16:21–18:32]).
  • Sought to avoid stark contrast between “slick” outside footage and prisoner-derived material.
  • The constraints—vertical video, graininess, shaky images—became a metaphor for life inside: boxed-in and surveilled.

  “That sort of a metaphor for the whole thing. So you feel a little bit of the claustrophobia in a small way that's present in the prison all the time.” — Andrew Jarecki ([16:21])

5. Case Study: Steven Davis’ Death

• The story of Steven Davis, a prisoner killed by a guard (Rod Gadsden), became the film’s throughline.
  • The filmmakers learned of his beating in real time and documented the family’s struggle for answers and justice ([20:50]).
  • They used covert methods (cell phones in pockets, off-the-cuff filming) due to institutional obstruction ([23:36]).

  “She... had the presence of mind to say, I don't want this to happen to any other mother, what I just went through. So, you guys, I'm going to help you in whatever way I can.” — Andrew Jarecki ([20:50])

6. Obstruction and Control by Prison Authorities

• Institutional efforts to hide abuses were pervasive. Even lawyer-client calls were surveilled, chilling attempts to get at the truth ([25:46]).

  “He says to him, you know, are, are you by yourself? And he says, no, no, I got an officer right here. In other words... this officer is standing over me and not allowing me to do it and... is feeding me lines.” — Andrew Jarecki ([25:46])

7. State Response: Denial and Retaliation

• Interviewed officials defended the system, deflecting criticism despite overwhelming evidence of corruption and harm ([29:51]).
  • Prison administration focuses on punishing whistleblowers and protest organizers, notably Robert Earl Council (Kinetic Justice), Melvin Ray, and Raoul Poole ([32:35]).
  • Solitary confinement and other punitive measures are employed to suppress activism and silence dissent ([32:35–34:03]).

  “It's not a situation where they... were in the film and then they got punished for being in the film. Right. They were... retaliated against regularly starting from long before we ever started making the film.” — Andrew Jarecki ([32:35])

8. Systemic Profit and Labor Strikes

• Alabama prisons rely on unpaid inmate labor (estimated $450 million/year). Organizing and work stoppages are used to shine a light on abuses ([37:08]).
  • Organizing is uniquely difficult because “the company you're protesting controls every aspect of your life” ([41:20]).
  • Quote:

    “They have some sort of like, visual authority over the cell phone footage. And so I think we also tried to make sure that all of our own original principal photography, outside also felt very raw and textured and, you know, not overly controlled.” — Charlotte Kaufman ([18:32])

  • Prison response to organizing is collective punishment: cutting visitation, commissary, and food across the system ([42:08]).

9. Call to Action

• The filmmakers urge viewers to visit thealabamasolution.com to explore cases, get more information, and take directed action (such as calling prisons to demand protections for whistleblowers) ([43:23]).
  • The term “Alabama Solution” is now used within the prison system as code—indicating how the film has impacted both prisoners and guards ([44:32]).

  “The prisons have to be something that people vote... asking what does this politician... what is their stance on prison and on accountability and transparency?” — Charlotte Kaufman ([45:21])

10. Reflections and Audience Connection

• Sonny reflects on how the film changed his perspective—not about the need for incarceration, but about the necessity for humane treatment and real reform ([48:20]).

  “Watching this documentary is just like, it's. The, the whole system has failed in that regard. It's. It's a failure. Which, you know, means that I guess in. On some level, I am a prison reformer in that I think that this should be reformed and stopped.” — Sonny Bunch ([48:20])

• The filmmakers stress that mass incarceration impacts everyone, and that secrecy in the system keeps the public from seeing prisoners as humans ([50:12]).

  “45% of Americans have had a loved one who's been incarcerated... everybody's getting touched by prison.” — Andrew Jarecki ([50:12])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Documentary Transparency:

  "We were liberated from the approved narrative and from the approved visuals and access that, you know, otherwise we would have been constrained by." — Charlotte Kaufman ([11:18])

• On Institutional Violence:

  "This seems like the entire prison system is a criminal enterprise. ...The drugs are coming in from the guards." — Andrew Jarecki ([08:32])

• On Labor and Collective Punishment:

  “They have a captive workforce who is probably going to be so happy to not be inside these death camps that they'll kind of accept any sort of conditions and just be happy to be outside working in the free world.” — Charlotte Kaufman ([37:08])

• On Impact and Action:

  "There’s a button there that will give the ability to take some very specific and relatively easy action just to register your feelings and to be able to call the prison where the men are being held and say, protect these guys. We're watching." — Andrew Jarecki ([43:23])

• Phrase Entering Prison Vocabulary:

  "Officers will say... 'Don't Alabama solution me.'... the fact that there is the possibility of being exposed and they can't just... be confident that what they do behind these walls... will remain hidden is a positive thing." — Charlotte Kaufman ([44:32])

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [02:21] — Sonny describes being moved by the film despite not being a “prison reform guy”
• [03:35] — Jarecki discusses the genesis of the project and initial access to Alabama prisons
• [06:06] — Kaufman exposes the realities of state-mediated documentaries
• [11:18] — The pivotal role of cell phone footage and prisoner collaboration
• [16:21] — Embracing visual imperfection as a metaphor for confinement
• [20:50] — The filmmakers’ real-time involvement in Steven Davis’s murder investigation
• [25:46] — Institutional interference in legal access and witness intimidation
• [29:51] — Contrasting state officials’ denials with evidence of systemic abuse
• [32:35] — Discussion of retaliation against prisoner activists and growing authoritarianism
• [37:08] — Examination of prison labor and the logic/impact of mass work stoppages
• [43:23] — Website as a hub for action and further investigation
• [44:32] — “Alabama solution” becomes a cautionary phrase inside prisons
• [48:20] — Sonny’s own takeaways as an audience member

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Takeaways & Call to Action

• The episode paints a damning portrait of the Alabama prison system—one of secrecy, violence, and impunity, but also of hope and resistance in the form of inmate-led organizing.
• The Alabama Solution is not only a documentary, but also a rallying point for public engagement, legislative scrutiny, and social change.
• Viewers/listeners are encouraged to watch the film, visit the website (thealabamasolution.com), and participate in the suggested advocacy efforts.

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Final Thoughts

By decentering the “approved narrative” and prioritizing footage and voices from inside, the filmmakers offer a harrowing, intimate, and transformative look at American incarceration. The open and sometimes raw conversation among Sonny, Andrew, and Charlotte spotlights a corner of society most Americans rarely see—urging us not just to bear witness, but to act.

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[End of summary.]

Transcript

[Andrew Jarecki]

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[Sonny Bunch]

That's SimplePractice.com welcome back to the Bulwark coast of Hollywood. My name is Sonny Bunch. I am Culture Editor at the Bulwark and I'm very pleased to be joined today by Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman, who are the directors of the Oscar nominated documentary the Alabama Solution. I'm very excited to have you guys on the show today to talk about your film. Thanks for joining me.

[Andrew Jarecki]

Thanks. We're happy to be here.

[Charlotte Kaufman]

Thanks.

[Sonny Bunch]

So I want to set the stage here just a little bit because I think it will help demonstrate the power of this film. I am. You know, we were setting up this interview, and I mentioned I'm not really a prison reform guy. I'm a movie guy. I'm the movie guy, but I'm not a prison reform guy. I do not necessarily believe in a lot of, you know, decarceration stuff. Like, that's not my balliwick. And I say this as just to drive home the fact that watching this really, really moved me, because it's not. It's one thing to say people should be in prison. People who commit crimes should be in prison, but they should also be treated humanely. And I think that what we see in this film is the creation of. It's like watching the HBO show Oz in real life. And that's horrifying. That's a. That's a horrifying thing to watch. What's interesting about the film is that it kind of starts off as a wholly different thing. The first two minutes or so of this, it feels like you're starting a different documentary. I was kind of like, what am I watching here? And then things get. Things get intense and crazy. What was the genesis of this project, Andrew?

[Andrew Jarecki]

Well, you know, I had visited prisons over time making. I made a film called Capturing the Freedmen's. And that brought me into Dannemora prison in upstate New York. And I was just very struck by the secrecy and the sort of. That feeling of just being in an environment that you have no control over and everybody is. Is sort of treated like a criminal. And I remember thinking, strange that it was so hard for me to get in here. Obviously, I couldn't have brought a camera. And then just over the years, I visited prisons a lot because I was sort of fascinated by. By how much trouble we seem to have managing our US Prison system. And then I was interested in Alabama. I assumed that we would never be able to get into that prison system. We met a warden who was willing to let us come in and film this revival meeting. As you say, that first, you know, few minutes of the film. And so we went in to film this sort of Christian revival meeting. And while we were there, men started calling us aside and saying, I can't believe there's a camera in here. But what they're showing you is not what's really happening. You know, you need to see what's happening in that building over there and that building over there. There's something really, really amiss here, and you need to tell the story. And then when Charlotte and I, you know, we sort of get kicked out, as you see in the film, because we get a little too nosy. And then later we find out that there are men inside who have access to contraband cell phones, who are incredible leaders who've actually been leading a nonviolent protest movement to try to show the conditions in there. So that's sort of how we ended up being able to film inside a prison which is normally such a incredibly secretive institution.

[Sonny Bunch]

Yeah. Charlotte, what was the vibe like there in the prison that first day? Because again, to kind of set the mood here, if you go and you can watch the movie, it's on HBO Max right now, two hours of your time. It's. It's well worth that time because it is a. It's a jarring experience. But the, but the, the. The tone for that first, you know, couple minutes is like, hey, we're here, we're celebrating. It's a religious event and the food is so good. And, and then all of a sudden you start getting these little asides and the cameras kind of pointed down as you're doing these interviews. It's, it's just a. The, the vibe shift is very real in that. That opening segment.

[Andrew Jarecki]

Yeah.

[Charlotte Kaufman]

I think for us, that experience was a reminder of the pageantry of incarceration in America and how often you are only allowed to see something that has been pre. I mean, actually not often. Most of the time you are only allowed to see something that has been pre approved by the state or by the prison administration. And in this case, it was a very Christian scene. In fact, the warden said to us, when we sort of asked, like, why are you giving us such access? He said, well, I know you're making a Christian movie. So I think, you know, all most documentaries that you watch about prisons only happened because the prison has allowed the filmmakers to come in and can control what they're seeing. And so that was very much the case that day. And, you know, obviously the facade cracked and we started speaking to people amidst the, you know, gospel music singing and the barbecue and the very happy scene. The reality was still there and still came through. And we were able to speak to these people off on the side who told us there are horrible things happening here. And I think the reason we put it at the beginning of the film is because we wanted to remind audiences of what you're usually allowed to see and also give them an appreciation for the reality once we get there. So to sort of establish the wall that exists for prisons, for journalists, for filmmakers, both Literally, because we run up against a wall and they stop us from filming.

[Andrew Jarecki]

And.

[Charlotte Kaufman]

And metaphorically, in terms of the mythology that we're told by the state about what prisons are.

[Sonny Bunch]

You raise a really interesting point here about kind of theory of documentary filmmaking, which is the. The idea of what is seen is not necessarily any image is mediated through somebody's storytelling. Right. That is basically what is happening here, which is. Again, it's. It's. I think. I don't. I. I don't think a lot of people think about this when they sit down to watch a documentary, but it's something critics think about all the time, is like, what am I seeing here? What is the story that is being told? And it's a really interesting, powerful way of kind of capturing that for audiences.

[Andrew Jarecki]

Yeah. I mean, it's also the case that, you know, we've made lots of films over time where you're interviewing people who've got a little bit of a spin on the story or maybe they've done something. You know, I spent a lot of time with Robert Durst, who had a whole way of describing his life and his history that ignored his seven, you know, his. His multiple murders. But in this case, it was really different. Right. They're actively preventing you from finding out what's going on inside, because if they were showing you what's going inside, then you would broadcast it, and people would be outraged by it. Because I think even the people who are, you know, tough on crime or the conservatives who have seen the film universally say to us, hey, that's not what I'm talking about when I say tough on crime. Like, these people have to have some minimal constitutional protections. And this seems like the entire prison system is a criminal enterprise. Right. That the drugs are coming in from the guards. The guards are the ones that are bringing in the cell phones. Drug overdoses are really the result of guards selling drugs to prisoners who are, you know, captive and not in a position to. To do anything in their lives other than try to turn to something like that if someone offers it to them, because there's so little going on. That's rehabilitative. We see repeatedly episodes where guards are not only beating people who are incarcerated, who are supposed to be in their care, but are actually killing them. And it's not limited to Alabama. We've seen that in upstate New York pretty recently, and we've seen it in California and lots of other places. But it is pretty incredible that we drive past these institutions and we assume that, you know, if something terrible was happening, Back there, then we would probably hear about it or a journalist would pick up on it. But they're really allowed to keep these places secret. And we got 2 million people locked up in these institutions. This is not a small problem.

[Sonny Bunch]

Can we talk about the technological angle here? Because one of the things that's really fascinating about this film is that it's not just the footage you guys shoot in the prison early on and, you know, and elsewhere, interviews, et cetera. We get footage from inside the prison. It's something we never see. That's a thing that just. We never. We never get. But we get that because of something we did not simply did not have access to 10 years ago. Cell phones with great cameras that can record and send data out. How much did that change your kind of filmmaking process? What. What did getting access to that do to your ability to tell this story?

[Charlotte Kaufman]

Well, getting access to that footage meant that we were liberated from the approved narrative and from the approved visuals and access that, you know, otherwise we would have been constrained by. So that, you know, is very much the heart of this story is being able not only to get this incredibly, you know, shattering visual evidence of what incarceration really is in America, but also being able to spend uninterrupted time with people who are living inside these systems. You know, usually your phone calls with people who are incarcerated are limited to 15 minutes at a time and they are surveyed by the authorities. So that creates a very different. Any documentarian would agree that is not the most opportune conditions under which to be connecting with someone and trying to get to some truth of who they are and their humanity and what they know, etc. So I think the cell phones were certainly, you know, have allowed us to overcome that secrecy that Andrew was talking about in a really important and meaningful way. In some ways, they're the only currently like one of the only oversight mechanisms or mechanisms of transparency in prisons. And how ironic that is for a system that costs us so much money. And the people who are using the cell phones are doing it at great risk for themselves and against the. The prison regulations. But we were very lucky to be working with them.

[Sonny Bunch]

I want to ask what your guys process was like for contacting these guys when you're talking to them on the phone, because there are moments in the film where you're saying where they say, if we stop or we say something, you got to stop talking. You got to be quiet. What were some of the safeguards like for you when you were interviewing them?

[Charlotte Kaufman]

Well, I mean, we. We had to very much take their lead in terms of when was appropriate to talk, when wasn't. And we also had to be very much available 247 because you don't know a, when the signal is going to be strong, when they are in a position to take the phone out and have like a more extended conversation, when they're, they're, when they've. The even charging your phone is a really involved affair. So we sort of, our approach was whenever they are available, we need to be available. And in terms of you, in terms of those moments where they're saying, I have to go like, don't talk, don't speak, you know, obviously we would respect that. And it was very, you know, in those moments, very nerve wracking. And generally that those moments are

[Andrew Jarecki]

a

[Charlotte Kaufman]

reminder of the conditions under which we made this film as a whole. You know, that there are, there, there are authorities around who don't want these conversations to be happening and that's why they're so important. So. And I, I will also add, you know, sometimes we're very lucky that the cell phone footage, that cell phones are so advanced now. And sometimes we got clear images, but a lot of times we didn't get clear images. A lot of times the footage, the footage is grainy and it cuts out and you know, we're limited to the vertical frame and it's not the best lighting. And you know, luckily we had this incredible editor, Paige Marcella, who was able to do magic with, with all of that. But also, that kind of is also the point, the medium is the message. Like the fact that we have this, you know, this footage that isn't very clear because of the circumstances is sort of reminding the audience this, you know, everything that these men have to go through in order to speak and to be heard and to show the reality that they're living within.

[Sonny Bunch]

I never know quite how the Oscars are going to judge these things because it's a, you know, it's a dog and pony show, et cetera. And a lot of the times it's just like, well, this is a good. But your documentary really gets into a lot of, again, ideas of the artistry of documentaries that don't, don't always come into play here. The way the footage looks, the way it is edited together, the way it sounds is really jarring and unusual. And I'm curious if there was any, if you guys had any pushback from people who were looking to distribute this, were like, well, we can't use this. This isn't good enough. This footage doesn't work. People aren't going to watch this. Like, is that. Was it? Was there any of that? Or was. Or were people just like, yes, this is it. This is. This is how it needs to be?

[Andrew Jarecki]

I mean, I've never. We've been showing this film since we had it at Sundance, and millions of people have seen it on hbo. I've never had anybody say anything other than I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. And, you know, we were concerned up front about the fact that some of the footage was going to be boxed in. But as Charlotte says, that's sort of a metaphor for the whole thing. So you feel a little bit of the claustrophobia in a small way that's present in the prison all the time. So I think that the graininess of the footage is at the core. It's one of the reasons why this film feels so raw and so different. Obviously, they're beautiful images in the film, and we've had, like, incredible cinematographers and, you know, had to paint the picture of what life was like on the outside in Alabama in order for us to understand just how shocking the conditions are inside. You know, you need to be able to see a beautiful field before you see somebody in a. In a, you know, cell block where the floor is covered with 4 inches of water and there are rats and there are people who are walking around like zombies because they're. Because they're addicted to drugs or, you know, when you see a brutal incident. And obviously, we were trying to be careful also that there's so much material that's disturbing. We limited it to material that advanced the story. And there is a story in this film, right? It's not. This is not like a traditional documentary or, you know, a chronological sort of historical story. This is, you know, when we were in the middle of this filmmaking process, we discovered a murder that had been something that the prison one wants to cover up. And we end up tracking that murder and then ultimately sort of collaborating with the men inside to do an investigation. That's just not something I ever would have imagined working on is somehow working with people who are currently incarcerated to get evidence in the case of a corrections officer killing somebody. So it's very raw in that way.

[Charlotte Kaufman]

Can I also add one other thought about, like, the cell phone footage being jarring? I think there was a concerted effort in terms of how we filmed everything else to make sure that it wasn't that slick and that overly produced, because that could have created a feeling of, like, if we had done, like, really nicely lit interviews or every time we went into someone's home to film, we, like, fix the lighting and, you know, made sure that everything was very manicured and thorough, which can be beautiful. It would have. It could have created quite a asymmetry between sort of like what is real and what is not. Like you could have felt like you're in, like this. Everything that's happening outside is being very cared for. And these. They have some sort of like, visual authority over the cell phone footage. And so I think we also tried to make sure that all of our own original principal photography, outside also felt very raw and textured and, you know, not overly controlled. Even. Even some of the very, very stylized B roll we did. We didn't worry too much if there was like a shake in our lens of the really long, like really long lenses or if, you know, there were some imperfections. Because I think we wanted it all to be part of the same visual language and not. And not feel, you know, like two different films.

[Sonny Bunch]

Yeah, you definitely get some of that when you. When you're talking to Steven Davis's mom, particularly in the, you know, particularly in that scene in the car where she's driving away after. Not to spoil anything, the. Let's talk about Steven Davis here because he is. He is kind of the through line of the film. He is the story. Story that you guys follow. As you mentioned, you know, as you're. As you're filming, as you're reporting this out, you know, he is killed. How did you. How did you guys find out about that? And then what was the process of, you know, spending the next several years of filmmaking tracking his. The efforts to. To bring his killer to justice?

[Andrew Jarecki]

Well, we had been tracking this particular guard, Rod Gadsden, because we had been looking at all the pro se lawsuits that had been filed by people who are incarcerated. And one name just kept coming up as an officer who was involved in these brutal episodes of harming people in prison. Right. You're not supposed to be spraying people in the face with mace. You're not supposed to be beating them. You're not supposed to be harming them. You're supposed to be providing a safe environment for them as well. And so this. This one Officer Gadson kept coming up. And then we were talking to, you know, by text with one of the men in the film, and he happened to tell us about a particular incident where somebody in the prison, one of the residents of the prison had been badly beaten. And Charlotte and I went to UAB hospital You know, with our, like, iPhones out and just kind of got up to the floor where the. Where the ICU was. And when we got there, we found out that he had, in fact, been beaten to death. And then we were concerned that his parents or his mother wouldn't know what had happened to him because the prison very often tries to obfuscate that kind of information, or they don't even report on somebody dying, or they don't report on it quickly. And so we found his mother, and she was incredibly welcoming. And even though she had just been with her son when he had passed away, she. She was. Had the presence of mind to say, I don't want this to happen to any other mother, what I just went through. So, you guys, I'm going to help you in whatever way I can. I'm going to record my calls. You can occupy my house. And she said, you know, there are no hotels in town because it's a very small town. So Charlotte ended up literally, like, moving into her spare room. And that's one of the reasons why that footage is so real, is because by the time we start recording those moments where she's talking to the people from the prison and people are calling her up and lying to her about what happened, Charlotte is already kind of part of the furniture, just sort of has been part of the family for some days and is just there, able to pick up those little moments.

[Sonny Bunch]

Can we talk about filming that scene going into the hospital? Because, again, it's one of these moments where the orientation shifts. It goes, you know, from landscape to portrait, but you're there. This is you. You're. You're in the. You're in this. This sequence. How did you. How did you film that? Did you just stick your camera in your, you know, coat pocket? What was. What was that process?

[Charlotte Kaufman]

We both had our cameras. I was wearing a jumpsuit that has, like, a little pocket, and you just put the camera in and then you walk. So you see Andrew in the beginning, you know, walking ahead and you can see him a bit. And then. And you also had his phone. So, you know, it's sort of like a necessity, out of necessity that you use. You use the tools you have with you. And I think that, again, like ads, it's the medium. Again, is the message. Like, that experience of not really being able to access Stephen or, you know, feeling like people don't want you to film that they don't want you to figure out what's actually happening in this hospital is very much reflective of the truth. I mean, that's the experience. That's also the experience Sandy Ray had and, and her and Steven's dad had in terms of, you know, officers not wanting them to be alone with Steven Davis when he was dying. Sort of always being felt like you're being surveyed in the worst moment of your life when your son is passing away. When we actually before we, we met Sandy, we went and found Steven's dad and he, he, we, we went up, went to his house, he was there and we approached him and he said, are you guys from the media? Because they told me if I speak to the media or I speak to the news, they're not going to give us the body back. And which is a horrible threat to make to parents who have just loved their son under such circumstances. But I think it really reflects how much they want to control the narrative about everything, even about what happened to somebody's body. So I hope that in that scene when we're filming it through the phones, you kind of feel that again, pressure to not tell, you know, to not record what's actually happening.

[Andrew Jarecki]

Yeah, there's also, you know, Sonny, you probably remember the, the scene where as we were starting to investigate what really happened to Steven Davis, we have this lawyer for the family, Hank. And Hank arranges some attorneys calls to try to find out what is, you know, what the prison's not telling him about what really happened. And very quickly you, you see how awkwardly one of the witnesses is speaking on the phone and these long pauses and you can hear some additional voices in the background. And these calls are supposed to be private. An attorney call is supposed to be private. And so he says to him, you know, are, are you by yourself? And he says, no, no, I got an officer right here. In other words, I'm on a call with a lawyer. I should be telling you what I really saw, but this officer is standing over me and not allowing me to do it and, and you know, and is feeding me lines, basically. I mean it's very clear because you can hear the voices in the background. So that's a really sort of authoritarian picture. You know, that's some, that's like a scene from a fictional film that somebody's trying to talk to a witness and there's a hulking guard standing over him saying, I'm going to tell you what you can say and what you can't.

[Sonny Bunch]

Yeah, that, that whole sequence is wild. I mean that whole sequence is wild. But it's also, it's, it is interesting from, from your guys perspective because that is another, that's another thing. We don't, you know, often get access to the, the legal conversations from the defense attorney side, which I'm just curious, like, if there were any ethical concerns, like, what is it, what was the process like to make sure that the people you were talking, you were, you were listening in on also understood that the, that you're, you know, you had a documentary crew there.

[Charlotte Kaufman]

It was important that all of the people were anonymized. And the, you know, the attorney says, like, like I'm going to record your, your interview. Like they, they have a conversation beforehand about that. And, you know, are the ability for us to get access to these calls like that. The attorney, you know, that we were able to be there to film these calls is very unique because I think oftentimes, especially when it comes to calls with people who are incarcerated, again, you don't know when you're going to be granted the access, when you're going to be able to actually speak to these people. So it, you know, that scene is compiled and you can tell because of the change in his outfits over several days across several weeks of him being able to speak to new witnesses. And, you know, we sort of had to be on call again to just come and, and capture it when it happened. But, you know, I think we, we would have, if, if his lawsuit was ongoing, if their lawsuit was ongoing, we'd have to think very differently about using the material. That lawsuit has been, you know, adjudicated. It has been settled. And I think if somehow the, we weren't able to anonymize the, like, you know, the people in the calls or if they were identifiable, we'd have to think about it differently.

[Sonny Bunch]

No, again, it's, it's, it's, it's just, it's wild. The footage you guys, you guys have here and then the, you know, there are interviews, you guys talk to some, some of the officials in the state. What was, what was I. It did not, it did not seem like they were, they were, they were super into it, but also defending, you know, what the, what, what the system is and what they've done. How was, what was that process like? What was it like talking to these folks about, you know, knowing the footage you had in your back pocket and going to them and just being like, so what's the deal here? What's the deal in your prisons?

[Andrew Jarecki]

Well, I mean, the great thing about, you know, having an interview with a person who's in a position to control a system like this and knowing that the system is such a disaster. I mean, I personally believe that that whole Alabama Department of Corrections is really a criminal enterprise. And, you know, it's the largest law enforcement agency in the state and also the largest drug dealing operation in the state, because the drugs are coming in from the officers. As one of the prisoners said to me, when I asked him where the drugs were coming in, he said, you know, we don't leave here, Right? So to me, being able to talk to a Steve Marshall, somebody who can in such a polished way describe to you just a complete fantasy of what those prisons are like, you know, he says with a straight face, you know, we don't have an incarceration problem. We've got a crime problem. And he denies that there's any kind of systemic problem. He says, I wholeheartedly disagree with that. You know, to say that that's willful ignorance would be very, very charitable. I mean, there's no question that he knows that whether he tracks it as closely as we do or not, there were 1500 people that died in that system since Charlotte and I started making this film. And he's presiding over that system. So they know how bad it is. They know they're doing nothing to fix it. And yet they say, we've got a strategic plan. And yet the strategic plan doesn't seem to be improving the death rate, which has gone up since we started to work on the film. You know, it doesn't seem to be addressing the DOJ concerns. And all they've come up with is, we're going to build new prisons, which is a great way to raise a lot of money for our constituents and for people that, you know, are helping our campaign or whatever it is. The construction companies make a lot of money on it, but that's not what needs to be done to fix the prison. They got to fix the corruption, they got to fix the brutality. They don't need to just build new buildings.

[Sonny Bunch]

Yeah, I mean, that's. That's a great point. It does seem like there has been a response, though, which is to punish the people who have talked to you. You know, we've talked a lot about Stephen Davis, but there are surviving men in this prison who form kind of the, again, the ideological throughline of the movie. Robert Earl Council, who also goes by Kinetic Justice, Melvin Ray and Raoul Poole have been, you know, kind of separated and thrown into solitary. Right. What's. What's going on with those guys?

[Andrew Jarecki]

Not a situation where they, you know, were in the film and then they got punished for being in the film. Right. They were in the film. Over the last seven years, they've been retaliated against regularly starting from long before we ever started making the film. And they very bravely continue to do this work and to get the word out. That's their sort of mission. And we sort of expected maybe at the time that the film came out a year ago at Sundance that there would be retaliation. And then there was a period of time when they, there was no retaliation. And then their supporters announced that there would be a work stoppage, which, you know, that interferes with Alabama's $450 million in free labor. And shortly before the work stoppage was supposed to begin, then they were put into solitary. And so that kind of retaliation is usually the prison trying to defend itself against their activism in some form. Luckily, a lot of people who have seen the film, now that the story is not so secretive, took action. You know, we encouraged it and we told people where they could call and what, where they could write letters. And there were hundreds of phone calls that went into the facility where they were being held. And so far they've let Melvin Ray back into general population. And we're hopeful that they're going to do the same for the other men.

[Charlotte Kaufman]

I think that prisons across America are becoming, are being plunged further into darkness. They're, you know, they've always been black sites. They have always been places of places that have been carved out in our democracy where authoritarianism can exist. I mean, when you are brought into a prison, a lot of the inalienable rights that are protected by our Constitution are stripped away. And that has been supported by and ratified by the Supreme Court. Your First Amendment rights, your 14th Amendment, lots of different things. And currently we are seeing a withdrawal of the Department of Justice from any sort of interest in protecting the rights of people behind bars. And that has historically been one of the only mechanisms as a counterbalance to abuses happening in state prisons. And the Department of Justice has been completely, you know, this division, the civil rights division has been very. It has been entirely repurposed to go after what some insiders told CBS News, reverse racism and anti white bias. So I think, you know, there's a, there is a truck tough truth that the, the importance of activists and whistleblowers like these men are, it's rising, it's increasing, and at the same time, the risk they're taking is also going to increase. So, like the fact that they were being seen as trying to organize another strike, you know, is something that the state really does not want. And at the same time, I think the state is becoming. Feeling even more empowered to act with impunity. And this reflects things that are happening out in the street with people who are either citizen journalists or trying to protest what ICE or border control is doing. Those citizen journalists are really important, and as they become more important, so too does the risk to them, because authoritarian powers do not like that counterbalance.

[Sonny Bunch]

Yeah, no. Again and again, it's this profusion of technology. It makes everything immediately accessible in a way that is unlike anything in the past. Can we just focus a little bit on the strikes and the work stoppages for a minute? Because that's a big part of the back half, particularly of this documentary. And I. I mean, I frankly hadn't heard about it. It's not. It's not something that gets a lot of coverage in the media. What, Charlotte, what action had they taken to try and bring attention to what. What was happening to them and to stop it?

[Charlotte Kaufman]

They. They recognize that this. This whole system is very profitable for the state of Alabama. There's. The state of Alabama benefits from $450 million in unpaid services every year. And this is in the form of men who work in the prison for free, basically running the prison. But it also is in the form of them creating all of the furniture for the state, all of the chemicals for the state, so that the state doesn't have to pay for those types of things. And then, even more egregious, it includes them, actually. You know, what we would have called convict leasing men getting sort of leased out or being shipped out to work in car plants and chicken factories and at KFC and McDonald's for, you know, either nothing or for very little. And the. Both the state benefiting from that and also those companies benefiting from it because they have a captive workforce who is probably going to be so happy to not be inside these death camps that they'll kind of accept any sort of conditions and just be happy to be outside working in the free world. So the men understand that that is very profitable. And as Melvin says in the film, we've got to hit them where it hurts the most. And that's in the pocket, not in the mouth. And that if they can shut down the prison from an economic standpoint, that could be a powerful bargaining chip. So that is what then you see in the film, is you are inside collective organizing under extremely difficult conditions. I mean, you know, they're in there in different facilities, and they manage to organize across 14 prisons. And not only is it like the physical and geographical challenges that these isolated institutions present. But you also have to think about prisons are sites of economic deprivation. So it's really hard to unite people when they're in an environment designed to keep them apart. And so the leadership of these men in being able to do that is pretty extraordinary. So you're in the film, you're actually able to be along for that ride, which I have never seen anything like that. I had never seen anything like that before. I had read about Attica, for example, which is another famous moment of organizing within prisons. But with Attica, you really, for a long time had the outside narrative. Until, you know, many years later, certain documents were released and you realized, oh, this outside narrative we had was far from the truth. But in this film, like, you actually get to see, you know, the see it unfold, which is, I think, unique.

[Andrew Jarecki]

I mean, like in simple terms, we get to embed with men who are incarcerated who are planning a system wide labor strike, and you get to see how impressive their organizing skills are. You know, how hard it is to do that for unions, to do it in the free world and just get everybody on the same page. You could just imagine how difficult it is. And that's why we felt really lucky to be able to sort of ride along and see them do what they're doing and see them do it peacefully, you know, because it's, it's, it is very striking that these men have always been peaceful and always use things like labor stoppages or hunger strikes, but they're always met with violence by the authorities who are theoretically supposed to be protecting us from violence, but here they are committing violence.

[Charlotte Kaufman]

And you know, when, when, if you hold a labor strike, like in the free world, the. Your company doesn't control where you sleep, doesn't control what you eat, like the company that you're protesting against. Whereas in this case, the who they are trying to protest and change, controls what they eat, where they sleep, controls everything about their lives. So the stakes are like incredibly high.

[Andrew Jarecki]

It also even controls their ability to talk to their own relatives, their supporters, controls their ability to talk to lawyers because they won't let them talk to their lawyers.

[Charlotte Kaufman]

Something to just put a point on that. So Andrew was mentioning that our three central participants were recently moved to solitary confinement because ahead of a possible work strike.

[Sonny Bunch]

And

[Charlotte Kaufman]

as, as a response to just the thought that there might be a work strike, Alabama stopped visitation for the entire prison system, began cutting commissary, and cut food down for the entire prison system for all 20,000 people. I mean, that is collective punishment based on a rumor that there might be a work strike. I mean, that it just. It was, you know, once again, for us, we've already made this film, and we're sitting here trying to get as many people to. To watch it and to engage with the realities of what's happening inside our prison systems. And then something like that happens again, and you're just reminded how urgent it is and how ongoing. But it's remarkable the power they have over all of these people's lives and bodies with very little. With counterbalance or oversight.

[Sonny Bunch]

Yeah. Well, you mentioned wanting to get people to watch it. And again, it's on HBO Max now. You can go and you throw it on in 10 seconds, just go, turn your TV on and watch it. It's powerful, and you should. What's the hope here? What's the goal for. For, you know, somebody watches this, what do they do? What. What's. What's the call to action here?

[Andrew Jarecki]

Well, you know, the. The website for the film is not just sort of like your traditional, like, promotional website or something, is really a very deep dive into the investigation that we did into cases that couldn't find their way into the film. We actually go into and have investigated all 1500 deaths that happened since the beginning. So it's a place where you really can get a sense of the scope of the problem, but at least as important, you can also take action there. So there's a button there that will give the ability to take some very specific and relatively easy action just to register your feelings and to be able to call the prison where the men are being held and say, protect these guys. We're watching. We're paying attention. Just to shed light on that situation is actually keeping people safe. And I think a lot of people have done that. That's one of the reasons why, you know, I think the prisoners are so annoyed with us and probably the film. Charlotte, what's this. What are they saying inside about that? This is your. Where they're using.

[Charlotte Kaufman]

Yeah, they've started using the title. I mean, we've heard from several people that they've started using the title of the film as like, a euphemism for being exposed. So officers will say to. To the, you know, the incarcerated population, like, don't. Don't. Alabama solution me. Like, don't. Like, you know, don't expose me. Don't. This isn't going to be another Alabama solution here. And I think even the fact that that's a brain worm in their heads is a Good thing, you know, the fact that they like that there is the possibility of being exposed and they can't, they can't just, you know, be confident that what they do behind these walls, you know, will remain hidden is, is a positive thing. And I think in terms of what we hope for, you know, it's. The prisons have to be something that people vote, vote on. It has to be an issue that when they go to the polls, they are asking like, what does this politician and this candidate, what is their stance on prison and on accountability and transparency and you know, how we're treating the people both inside the facilities and their families outside. Because it's, it has a ripple effect throughout all of society and we are spending a tremendous amount of money on, on basically trauma boxes that I think are making us definitely not safer. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's detrimental to everybody. So I think we hope that people won't think of this as like a fringe issue or a separate issue or something that's hidden away behind the walls, but something that is, you know, they need to vote on also, you know,

[Andrew Jarecki]

people who are running for election, it's a very easy knee jerk reaction if you want to get a positive, you know, moment with your crowd or to say, well, you know, I don't like criminals. Well, everybody's going to agree with that. You know, I don't. I think we need safer communities. Okay. So therefore we need to be tougher on crime. Well, what do you mean by that? Well, we need to have longer sentences. Really? I mean, do you think that somebody who's committed a robbery when they were 18 needs to be in prison for 50 years for that? Or maybe there's some middle ground where we realize that spending $80 billion on people who are like aging in the prison, you see their guys in their. There's a guy who just passed away who was 104 when he died. Is there any value to society by keeping somebody in prison between the ages of 80 and 104? I think we could sort of all agree that there are ways to manage these institutions that are far more humane and also that we need to think about ways to address crime and safety that don't just involve more and more and more locking up the population? Because, you know, we're now the biggest jailer in the world. I think in the civilized world outside of China, we've got the highest percentage of our population incarcerated. 2 million people.

[Sonny Bunch]

Yeah, I mean, it's a, it's a, it's A pickle. It's a pickle. I will say.

[Charlotte Kaufman]

Sunny. Can I. Yeah. Can I ask a question? You said at the beginning of this that you weren't really a prison reform guy or a, you know, always thinking about, like, decarceration. And I think in many ways we thought a lot about that audience when we were making this, you know, that we wanted to reach people who, who maybe hadn't always thought about this because it's, it's understandable that you wouldn't always be thinking about this because they make it so difficult to actually see what's happening or, or really to connect with people or whatnot. But I'm curious, have your, have any of your thoughts or ideas been changed?

[Sonny Bunch]

Well, not, not precisely. They've been strengthened in a certain way, which is that I, again, I, I am okay with incarcerating people who have committed crimes. And, and let's be honest, a lot of the guys in your, in your documentary are murderers or, you know, armed robbers. Like, they're not there. They are. They are people who have committed crimes and should probably be in jail. But at the same time, I have, I've always believed, I've always hated, for instance, prison rape jokes or, you know, this guy gets beaten to death in prison. Well, that's what you get. Well, that's not actually what prison is supposed to be. That's not, that's treating people inhumanely. Again, treating people like Oz should be a how to plan instead of a kind of warning is. Is, I think, I think horrifying. It's. That's actually inhumane and horrifying and runs contrary to the idea of prison as, at the very least a place to incapacitate criminals and at best should be someplace to rehabilitate them. That is like, that's basically where I, where I stand. And watching, watching this documentary is just like, it's. The, the whole system has failed in that regard. It's. It's a failure. Which, you know, means that I guess in. On some level, I am a prison reformer, in that I think that this should be reformed and stopped. You know, it is, but it, you know, this is not often what people mean when they say prison reform is not, not necessarily what I think. So, I mean, I like, I, again, I, I think this is an amazing window into a world that needs to be fixed, for sure. I like that this is unacceptable on any human level. The, The. The way these, these guys are treated, which is, you know, one thing, that,

[Andrew Jarecki]

one thing that I'm, I, I always feel sort of Inspired by is when people watch the film who maybe come at it from a perspective of feeling like, you know, they want to be very tough on crime or they think that, I guess people should be locked up for just more years and somehow we're going to incarcerate ourselves out of this problem. And very often they'll just say something sort of uncomfortably, they'll say, you know, I guess this is just the first time that I've ever really had a conversation with somebody who's incarcerated, you know, because the secrecy also prevents the public from seeing people who are incarcerated as fellow human beings. But now, you know, 45% of Americans have had a loved one who's been incarcerated. When you have 2 million people locked up and you're locking up another 8 or 10 million a year and then letting them out, and some are coming out and some are going in, everybody's getting touched by prison. And a lot of the time it's just like your Uncle Steve who was, you know, in financial straits and did something bad or in the case when you see in the film, James Sayles is a person who has a unfortunate circumstance that you'll see in the film. But you know, he was there for a very, very nonviolent crime. Right. Entering an unoccupied building. And yet he's put into one of the most brutal facilities and even kinetic

[Charlotte Kaufman]

justice, his crime, you know, which ended up, he ended up being convicted of capital murder in, in another state. It would have, it could have been ruled as a stand your ground very clearly or self defense very like, very clearly. And with Stephen Davis, his, his, his crime, which also was murder, would be, would be looked at as felony murder, which is essentially you are, you are like happen to be in the vicinity with someone else who commits a murder and now you are charged with that too. Even if there was never a plan to do that, even if you didn' was going to happen. So I think there's, you know, a lot of nuance to many of these charges that you don't get to see. You know, that, that, yeah, that I think complicates things a bit.

[Sonny Bunch]

Yeah. Yeah. All right, we're, we're. Time is up here. We're, we've got to get going again. The name of the movie is the Alabama Solution. It's nominated for best documentary at the Oscars. It's on hbo. Max. Everybody should, should watch it. Even, you know, even if you're like me, even if you're a crime crime, criminals need to pay sort. It's, it is a it's, it's, it's a jarring thing to watch. And Andrew, Charlotte, thank you very much for being on the show with me today. I appreciate it.

[Andrew Jarecki]

Yeah, thanks.

[Charlotte Kaufman]

Thank you so much.

[Andrew Jarecki]

I mentioned the website, but I think it's, it's very simply the alabamasolution.com and you can learn a lot there and you can take action.

[Sonny Bunch]

And again, just go watch the movie. Everybody's got hbo, Max. Go check it out again. My name is Sonny Bunch. I'm culture editor at the Bullwork. And we will be back next week with another episode of the Bulwark Goes to Hollywood. We'll see you guys then.