Sen. Larry Stutts, R-Tuscambia, speaking at the Senate Health Committee on Jan. 21, 2026, in the Alabama State House in Montgomery, Alabama. An Alabama House committee passed legislation he sponsored that authorizes the Alabama Department of Public Health to oversee food inspections in prisons and jails. (Anna Barrett/Alabama Reflector)
An Alabama House committee on Wednesday approved legislation to require the state’s public health department to inspect both jails and prisons to ensure they meet standards for sanitary conditions.
SB 84, sponsored by Sen. Larry Stutts, R-Tuscumbia, mandates that the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH) inspect and recommend correctional measures in cafeterias and other areas in correctional facilities to ensure they are sanitary.
“Every person who I have talked to, their reaction has been, ‘You mean they don’t already do that,’” Stutts told the House Health Committee about ADPH not having the authority to oversee food service areas in jails and prisons. “Everyone just assumes they do, and they don’t. That has been the universal response that I have received.”
A message was sent to the Alabama Department of Corrections and the Alabama Department of Public Health on Friday seeking comment.
Stutts said he brought the legislation after he learned that Julia Tutweiler Prison for Women located in Elmore County did not have hot water in the kitchen for several weeks.
He said he then reached out to people who he did not name about the problem that required a lengthy time to fix. Afterward, Stutts said he reached out to the ADPH to ask what kind of jurisdiction the department has for addressing sanitation issues within ADOC.
Stutts said ADPH told him that it has the authority to inspect the facility but “we don’t have the authority to do anything about it.” ADPH would only report the issue to the warden of the correctional facility.
According to the bill, ADPH would have initially had the authority to enforce the existing rules that pertain to food services operated by ADOC and the county and municipal jails to ensure the conditions are sanitary. Afterward, ADPH would establish rules that deal with serving and handling food.
ADPH may inspect the areas that serve food and identify any violations, issue scores and recommend actions to address the situation short of terminating or suspending the food service establishment without agreement of the facility.
“By granting the Alabama Department of Public Health inspection and enforcement authority, it would help reduce some of the food-borne illness issues that we have seen in our correctional facilities, prevent food-borne outbreaks, and ensure basic sanitation in facilities where thousands of Alabamians rely on those institutional meals,” said Jerome Dees, Alabama policy director for the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Ronald McKeithen, director of Second Chances at Alabama Appleseed, a nonprofit that focuses on criminal justice reform, said that ADPH “needs to.”
McKeithen spent more than three decades in custody of the ADOC and worked in the kitchen to prepare food for others who were housed in the facilities.
He said rats would scurry along the roof and mice would dart in and out of the walls.
“All over the kitchen, they have these little holes in the walls where mice come out while you eat chow,” McKeithen said. “This is in the dining area.”
The bill moves to the full House.
From Alabama Reflector Post Url: Visit
Author: Ralph Chapoco