Holman Correctional Facility

Holman Correctional Facility

Location	Escambia County, Alabama
Status	open
Security class	medium
Capacity	998
Opened	December 1969
Managed by	Alabama Department of Corrections

William C. Holman Correctional Facility is an Alabama Department of Corrections prison located in unincorporated southwestern Escambia County, Alabama.^[1][2] The facility is along Alabama State Highway 21, 9 miles (14 km) north of Atmore in southern Alabama.^[2]

The facility was built to house 581 inmates. Holman now holds more than a thousand prisoners. ^[3] It has 630 general population beds, 200 single cells, and 168 death row cells, for a capacity of 998 maximum through minimum-custody inmates, including a large contingent of life without parole inmates. The death chamber is located at Holman, where all state executions are conducted. Holman also operates two major correctional industries within the facility's perimeter: a license plate plant and a sewing factory.^[1]

Holman Correctional Facility was the subject of a documentary on MSNBC entitled Lockup: Holman Extended Stay (2006).^[4] The Warden at Holman Correctional Facility at the time was Grantt Culliver. Culliver was Warden from 2002 - 2009.^[5] The current Warden is Carter Davenport.^[6]

History

Opened during December 1969, Holman originally had a basic capacity for 520 medium-custody inmates, including a death row cellblock with a capacity of 20. It was constructed for $5,000,000 during the administration of Governor of Alabama Lurleen Wallace and Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner James T. Hagen. The prisoners of the old Kilby Prison were moved to Holman Prison. It was named in honor of a former warden, William C. Holman.^[2]

Due in part to legislative rules on penalties for drug crimes, the prison population at Holman and other facilities began to climb in the 1970s. On Friday August 29, 1975, two U.S. federal district court judges, William Brevard Hand and Frank M. Johnson Jr., ordered Alabama authorities to stop sending any more prisoners to Holman, Fountain Correctional Facility, Draper Correctional Facility, and the Medical and Diagnostic Center, due to overcrowding; the four prisons, designed to hold 2,212 prisoners, were holding about 3,800.^[7]

Since Holman opened, it gained a reputation for being the most violent prison in Alabama, a situation exacerbated by the years of overcrowding. Staff and prisoners said that after Grantt Culliver became the warden, violence decreased. This was covered in the documentary, Lockup: Holman Correctional Facility (2006), which MSNBC produced. Hillary Heath, the inside producer of Lockup, said that it is difficult for reputations to die down, so Holman still has a reputation for violence.^[8]

The prison experienced riots in March 2016.^{[9] [10]} In the first riot fires were set in a prison dorm, and the warden and a prison guard sustained stab wounds.^[11] An individual recorded portions of the riot on a cell phone and posted it to social media.^[12]

In September 2016, a group of corrections officers have gone on strike over safety concerns and overcrowding. Prisoners refer to the facility as a "slaughterhouse" as stabbings are a routine occurrence.^[13]

Operations

The Gulf Coast area where Holman is located often has 100-degree heat during the summer. The prison administration cannot afford to install air conditioning, so the prison has hundreds of industrial fans used for moving the air in an attempt to provide cooling. The hottest areas in the prison are the kitchen facilities.^[8]

The prison has a capacity of over 800 prisoners. The death row has room for 192 prisoners.^[14]

Demographics

As of 2006, Holman, with a capacity of 500 prisoners, houses 1,000; nearly 60% black, and 40% white

Prisoner life

Hillary Heath, the inside producer of Lockup, said that when she asked prisoners to describe Holman, they used names like "The Slaughterhouse", "Slaughter Pen of the South", and "House of Pain", which referred to the frequent stabbings and violent attacks committed among the prisoners. The names "The Bottom" and "The Pit" refer to the prison's location in southern Alabama. One inmate said that, within the state, "you can't get any lower than this."^[8]

Heath reports that Holman inmates make "julep", a homegrown whiskey, using water, sugar, and yeast. She described julep as a brown liquid with dark floating chunks, resembling raw sewage. She said its odor "was not as vile as I imagined", smelling like sourdough bread and prunes.^[8]

Prisoners who commit indecent exposure commit rule violation #38, thus indecent exposure is referred to by inmates as "doing a '38'". Violating rule 38 of ADOC policy requires an inmate to attend sex addiction courses.^[8]

Notable prisoners

Death row (does not include prisoners who were only sent to Holman to attend their executions):

• Henry Hays - Convicted of murder of Michael Donald^[15] - Alabama Institutional Serial #Z443 - Executed on June 6, 1997^[16]
• Walter Leroy Moody, murderer of Robert Smith Vance^[17] - Alabama Institutional Serial #00Z613^[18]
• Daniel Lee Siebert - Alabama Institutional Serial #00Z475^[19] - Died from cancer while in custody in 2008^[20]
• Courtney Larrell Lockhart - Murdered Lauren Burk in 2008.

Non-death row:

• Bobby Frank Cherry - Klan perpetrator of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, which killed four African-American girls.^[21] On October 13, 2004, Cherry was transferred from Holman Prison to Atmore Community Hospital in Atmore.^[22]Cherry died while in hospital custody on November 18, 2004.^[23]
• Bobby Ray Gilbert - Featured on three episode's of MSNBC's Lockup, filmed inside of Holman prison.^[24]

See also

• Capital punishment in Alabama

References

External links

External image

Alabama's execution chamber

• Holman Correctional Facility (Alabama Department of Corrections)

Alabama Department of Corrections prisons
State prisons	Bibb Bullock Donaldson Draper Easterling Elmore Fountain / JO Davis Hamilton Aged & Infirmed Holman Kilby Limestone Montgomery Women's Facility♀ St. Clair Staton Tutwiler♀ Ventress
Closed	Farquhar Cattle Ranch Wetumpka State Penitentiary
Above facilities are male-only unless noted by ♀ (female only)

Coordinates: 31°08′03″N 87°26′59″W / 31.1343°N 87.4497°W / 31.1343; -87.4497