The Alabama Solution is a documentary that dropped on HBO Max in 2025, produced by the same people who made the extremely popular docuseries The Jinx. But while that show focused on a series of crimes allegedly committed by one man, The Alabama Solution is much more ambitious, exposing a system of corruption in a way that makes it feel like a thriller.
The movie got good reviews and an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Feature, but it’s still vastly underwatched.
Injustice in the justice system
The Alabama Solution goes deep undercover
The Alabama Solution is about the rot at the root of the Alabama prison system, which we learn has among the highest rates of drug overdose, rape, suicide, and murder in the United States. In the past, documentaries might explore those topics by talking to experts on the subjects and by sifting through statistics, which is a great way to build an argument. But the reality is that a lot of people know that prison systems are corrupt; it’s just difficult to get them to pay attention. The Alabama Solution gets creative.
The story behind the documentary is part of the documentary itself. Directors Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman visited Easterling Correctional Facility in Southeast Alabama to film a religious revival, complete with a barbecue. While there, several prisoners approached and implored them to investigate abuses going on inside the prison, insisting that the cheery atmosphere of the revival is all for show.
Wardens are allowed to bar journalists from prisons — legally speaking, it’s easier to document a war zone than the inside of a U.S. prison — so Jarecki and Kaufman work with a network of inmates who use contraband smartphones to record their experiences inside. Prisoners have always been known to be able to get things they’re not supposed to have, and it may even be easier at Eastland, which has double the number of inmates it’s supposed to have with one third of the recommended staff.
This is how The Alabama Solution grabs your attention. It’s one thing to hear about bloodstained walls, rat-infested toilets, and severe overcrowding, and another to see video proof of them. And while this shouldn’t be necessary, seeing prisoners like Melvin Ray and Robert Earl Council surreptitiously recount their experiences knowing that the penalties can be severe — we hear of inmates being locked in solitary confinement for years at a time — adds an intense layer of drama. The Alabama Solution is gripping to watch.
But is it enough to break through?
Another problem with documentaries about prison abuse is that a lot of people are resistant to the idea of sympathizing with prisoners. Spending time with Ray and Earl Council in such close quarters helps to overcome that. They’re not claiming that they’re innocent of whatever it was that landed them in Easterling; they’re just documenting what goes on there, and the images speak for themselves.
The Alabama Solution eventually focuses in on the death of an inmate named Steven Davis. Most of the prisoners’ accounts of his death, which involves him getting beaten by guards, line up. A clandestine photograph of his corpse, with his face caved in and his eye a black circle, is hard to forget.
The documentary gives us some respite with more traditional footage; it spends time with Steven’s grieving mother Sandy, for instance, and profiles some of the guards, politicians, and other officials who keep the system running. In one sequence, we see deposition testimony of a guard who seems to be completely unaffected as he’s accused of a raft of atrocities, certain that the system will protect him. He’s probably right. Instead of trying to improve prison conditions, the state government’s response to all of this is to condemn the spread of smartphones behind bars.
The Alabama Solution is short on solutions
Although that’s not a problem for a documentary to solve
The Alabama Solution takes its name from something once said by Alabama governor Kay Ivey: that if there are problems with the Alabama prison system, then they require an Alabama solution. The upshot of that is that Ivey would rather the federal government not investigate any improprieties, although the movie makes the point that Alabama prisons are far from alone in being corrupt and abusive, even if they’re among the worst.
The cinematographer on The Alabama Solution was Nicholas Kraus. It was edited by Page Marsella. Crew members like that are always important, but given how tricky the footage in this movie would have been to deal with, it feels like they warrant special mention.
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Taking a break
The Alabama Solution has other points to make; in one section, it profiles an attempt statewide prison strike, which could have been very effective given that incarcerated people provide $450 million in goods and services to Alabana each year, even though they get paid around $75 cents per hour on the high end. Like other great documentaries like 13th and The Farm: Angola, USA, The Alabama Solution makes a convincing argument that, in practice, prisons in the U.S. enforce a kind of modern-day slavery.
Obviously, The Alabama Solution is a very heavy watch. If that kind of thing appeals to you, there are other documentaries like that out there, although you’d also be forgiven to want to watch something a little lighter now and then.
- Release Date
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October 10, 2025
- Runtime
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117 minutes
- Director
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Charlotte Kaufman, Andrew Jarecki
