By CAROLINE BECK Alabama Daily News

For today’s In the Weeds episode, I am talking with the newly appointed Director of the Bureau of Pardons and Paroles Cam Ward. I spoke with Ward on his vision for the agency amidst the concerns over Alabama’s crowded prison system and the U.S. Department of Justice’s lawsuit against the state over the conditions of its men’s prisons.

I talked with Ward about how his experience as a state legislator for nearly 20 years has given him valuable insight into how to improve the bureau and hopefully regain the trust of the state Legislature. I wanted to speak with Ward now that he is a little over a month into the job and as he prepares to submit the agency’s 2022 budget request to lawmakers later this month.

Before taking the oath from Gov. Kay Ivey in early December, Ward was a state senator, representing District 14 since 2010.  As the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he has been the lawmaker behind many pieces of criminal justice legislation over the years, including a number of bills set for the 2020 regular session but sidelined by the COVID-19 pandemic. State lawmakers have already signaled that prison legislation will be a main priority in the upcoming 2021 session.

In our conversation, Ward is careful not to focus on a specific number of parole hearings he would like to see in the coming months, but does say he wants to see an increase. One data point he will be looking for is the recidivism rate in three to four years, which he says the bureau has a responsibility to decrease.

Over the last year, since former director Charlie Graddick took control of the bureau in 2019, the number of parole hearings dropped drastically as did the number of paroles granted. This drew criticisms from criminal justice advocates, especially as COVID-19 was spreading through Alabama’s prisons, infecting those who could have possibly been released on parole.

Ward and I spoke about how the agency has been facing a crisis of confidence at the leadership level since the bureau has had five different directors in about nine years. Ward said one of his main goals is to bring a sense of stability to the bureau and boost overall morale for the agency’s more than 700 employees.  

Another big goal for Ward is to update the agency’s technology systems to adapt to the needs created by the COVID-19 pandemic and move away from the antiquated paper-based system the agency uses. Ward said the lack of technology is another reason why parole hearings have slowed.

One interesting project related to technology that Ward spoke to me about that didn’t make it into the recording was his plans for having a video feed for inmates to be able to call into their own parole hearings. Inmates have historically never been able to attended meetings in person and now during the pandemic, no one from the public has been allowed to attend meetings.

Ward also told me of his possible intentions to move the bureau’s central office, currently located in east Montgomery and where the three-member-board meets for their weekly parole and pardon hearings, to a different location. Ward thinks some of the new office space is unnecessary and not really conducive to holding safe parole hearings.

During our tour of the new offices, I briefly met the three board members as they were working through the day’s parole cases. They said the current hearing room was probably a third of the size of their original hearing room and think it would be better for both the crime victims and inmate’s families if the room was larger and provided two separate entrances to avoid any conflicts or possible tensions that ...