Inmate Joshua Hamer, 41, died on November 23 from severe injuries sustained during an assault at Bibb Correctional Facility in Brent, Alabama. The attack occurred on November 6, and Hamer’s family describes the brutality he endured as unimaginable. “His face was just literally kicked in,” his aunt told Alabama Appleseed, the Equal Justice Initiative reported.
Hamer’s death was confirmed by the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC), which described his injuries as “life-threatening” before he was pronounced dead at the hospital. At the time of the attack, Hamer had served just 20 months of a nearly 10-year sentence for theft of property. He would have been eligible for parole in June 2026.
Tragically, Hamer’s death is not an isolated incident. He is at least the 12th individual killed in an Alabama prison this year and the third in less than two months. On October 26, Carl Powell was killed at Limestone Correctional Facility. Just days later, on November 1, Jamal Wilson was killed at Elmore Correctional Facility.
The violence inside Alabama’s prisons has been a long-standing crisis. In 2019, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a scathing report, stating that Alabama’s prison system “routinely violates the constitutional rights of prisoners” due to its failure to protect incarcerated individuals from widespread violence and sexual abuse. The DOJ further pointed to ADOC’s mismanagement as a significant factor contributing to the “high level of violence” within state prisons.
Yet, despite federal scrutiny and repeated warnings, conditions have shown little improvement. For each of the past five years, Alabama’s prison homicide rate has exceeded 60 per 100,000 incarcerated people—more than five times the most recent national average.
The loss of Joshua Hamer underscores the deadly consequences of systemic neglect. Alabama’s incarcerated population continues to face unprecedented levels of violence, raising urgent questions about accountability, reform, and the constitutional rights of those in the state’s custody.
In July, the DOJ filed a brief in a longstanding lawsuit brought by former and current inmates of an Alabama prison, alleging widespread violence and sexual assaults among prisoners. The DOJ’s brief cautioned prison officials against violating the inmates’ constitutional rights,
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