The Alabama Solution takes viewers inside one of the nation’s deadliest prison systems, where incarcerated men defy the odds to expose a cover-up. The documentary film was released on HBO Max in October 2025 and is nominated for Best Documentary at the upcoming 98th Academy Awards on March 15, 2026.
ScreenAge Wasteland’s own Jacob Holmes recently sat down with Beth Shelburne, a producer on The Alabama Solution, to talk about the Oscar-nominated documentary film and her 14-year career reporting on the Alabama prison system.
The interview below has been edited for length and clarity. For the full, uncut discussion, click the video below to watch on ScreenAge Wasteland’s new YouTube channel, ScreenAge Wasteland Exclusives.
Jacob Holmes: I remember talking to you. I don’t know if it was at the premiere of The Alabama Solution or if it was another time, but you mentioned that you were always covering prisons before you were independent and that you would get some ribbing for that at times. But this has been an issue near and dear to your heart for a while.
Beth Shelburne: Yeah, that’s true. I started taking a look as a journalist at the Alabama Department of Corrections in 2012, when I was working for WBRC as a TV news anchor and investigative reporter. And it started with problems inside Tuttweiler Prison for Women.
And that actually was the first time in my professional life as a journalist and writer that I really spent some time thinking about prison and its relationship to our justice system. I had covered a lot of crime as a reporter, but I had never really thought about, you know, what happens on the back end of crime after somebody is convicted and sentenced. And so that was kind of my entry point into the system, and I realized that, oh my God, there’s like this whole other world happening inside jails and prisons that’s incredibly harmful and really is not delivering on its mandate anymore. And I’ve been doing stories about it ever since.
You’ve been aware of and covering and trying to get this story out to people for over a decade. I think you said this documentary started around 2020, 2021?
2019 actually. I left traditional journalism in June of 2019. And I got a Facebook message from one of the directors of the film in July of 2019. So it was very serendipitous that I had entered this new phase of my life as a journalist and creator, and they were just starting to take a look at Alabama and what’s happening in our prison system, and thinking about whether this could be a documentary film project. And so, you know, the stars align, as they say.
There’s a scene at the very beginning of the film at an event where the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) allowed directors Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman to bring their cameras in. At that time, I think you said that they were still kind of not even sure what the project would be, that they were just trying to understand and wrap their heads around what was happening in Alabama prisons.
So, what was that process like, bringing them on board and then them figuring out what the story was here and how they were going to cover it?
Yeah, so they got an opportunity to go into Easterling prison in kind of central South Alabama with Chaplain Curtis Browder, who is the oldest prison chaplain in the state. And he goes into prisons and ministers to people and serves meals to folks. And he’s been doing this for half a century. So Chaplain Browder met Andrew Jarecki when Andrew happened to be in Montgomery. And Andrew’s always been interested in criminal justice issues. So has Charlotte Kaufman. But Chaplain Browder invited them to come with him into Easterling prison, where he was gonna do a revival.
And because Chaplain Browder is well known in the prison, the wardens allowed these two filmmakers to come in with their cameras and to film the revival. But what happened is exactly what you see in the introductory scene of the film, where men started approaching them and saying, “Look, there are all kinds of horrible things going on in the system that are being covered up. People are getting murdered. Nobody knows about it. We need help.” And that’s when Charlotte and Andrew realized, “Oh, there’s something else happening in here that we should be paying attention to.”
They started doing a lot of reading and researching on Alabama prisons after that visit. That’s how they found my work and reached out to me. And you know, they realized this is kind of ground zero for the worst results of mass incarceration in our country. Unfortunately, Alabama is exceptionally bad at running prisons. So that’s how they decided, let’s take a critical look at this system and see what’s going on, and talk to as many people as we can. And it started with that initial visit to Easterling prison.
What everybody quickly realized was that the only way to film this documentary would actually be through the prisoners themselves, through contraband cell phone footage. How early was that kind of realized? Especially with the high stakes involved, how did you proceed forward with that?
It was early on in the process. There was already a body of work that existed on YouTube and on Facebook. You know, these whistleblowers, the three men in the film, and lots of other people in the system who had access to cell phones had been documenting violence, abuse by officers, violence between incarcerated people, medical neglect, you know, all these things that you see in the film and more.
So we knew that was there, and it was there serving as evidence that this is unfolding inside the system in real time and has been for years. And because it was there and it’s sort of inarguable when you see these scenes and the scope and scale of them, what you see in the film is just a tiny fraction of what actually exists in the world from these cell phone videos that are captured inside prison.
But we just realized that we couldn’t honestly tell the story without including that body of work, that it exists as evidence, and it’s what the people who are actually living this crisis are putting out into the world. And that’s always the best way, I think, to tell a story about trauma and harm, from the person who’s actually experiencing the trauma and harm. So, I would say we had lots of conversations early on, and it was decided sometime in the first year or two that this is gonna be an important part of the film.
So, for people who haven’t seen The Alabama Solution, the film follows the family of Stephen Davis and the organizers of the Free Alabama Movement inside the prisons, who ended up organizing a work strike while you guys were doing this documentary, Robert Earl Council, Melvin Ray, and Raoul Poole. It seems like those are kind of the two threads that this movie follows.
I would add a third thread, which is sort of what is happening in the public sphere with Alabama’s government, with the Department of Justice and their actions in Alabama, and sort of how the news media is following that part of it. So we tried to braid all those three things together.
It was done very well. Now, you lived through all these events. What was it like seeing the finished documentary? How involved were you in seeing it come together versus seeing the finished product that kind of retells that in such a powerful way?
As a producer of the film, the filmmakers really relied on my reporting background, my sources, and my knowledge of the system. What I assisted in was the investigative parts, such as embedding with Stephen Davis’s family. For viewers who haven’t seen the film, Steven Davis is an incarcerated man who is beaten to death very early in the film. And his mother really is searching for answers about what happened and some justice and truth. So we follow along with her for years throughout the making of the film.
I actually got involved in another project, a podcast series that I produced about a death row case in Alabama around 2022, 2023, when the film’s edits were happening. I would have discussions with the two directors about structure and ways that we could make sure that we’re dotting all the i’s and crossing the t’s with fact-checking and all the journalism aspects of it.
But the editor, Paige Marcella, and other people who worked on it were strapped into that edit suite and grinding away for 18 months. I saw some rough cuts probably halfway through the process, and that was when we still hadn’t identified these three narrative storylines that we were going to braid together. We were all trying to kind of weigh in on what we thought was most compelling and most truthful for what we were trying to do.
I think I saw the first full cut of the film in 2024, but it’s come a long way since then. There were many, many versions where we were revising and tightening things up and trying to improve flow and all those things that you do while a film is being edited. The first time I saw the final version was a couple of months before it premiered at Sundance, which was in January of 2025. Even though I already knew all the stories that were going into the film, a lot of the editorial choices that had been made, when I was watching that final cut with the music that the composers put together, I was spellbound.
When it was over, I just wept. I’m not a big crier when it comes to these kinds of stories because you do become used to being proximate to tragedy and really difficult things. But it just struck me that all of our effort and the effort of the incarcerated guys who helped us make this film had resulted in something really important and truthful and really beautiful.
The storytelling power behind it; it’s great that such an important topic found its way into such capable hands from a storytelling perspective, because I think there are a lot of versions of this where the topic could still be covered well, but that would lack that narrative punch that this film really packs. So I think it really is serendipitous how it all came together.
So obviously all this footage is coming in. There’s a lot of prerecorded stuff, but then there’s a lot of new footage that folks are filming with contraband cell phones. Was there always a real high-stakes sense about the potential blowback, especially on the prisoners themselves?
Oh, without a doubt, yes. You know, right out of the gate, when we started engaging with these men and others that you don’t see in the film, but were really integral to informing the story and speaking to us on background throughout the making of the film, we knew that this was literally a matter of life and death for them. And we had constant dialogue with them about that. It was always sort of front and center, the risk that they were taking, what were they comfortable with? How could we support them? How could we do this in a way that is the safest way to do it?
So, we as the filmmakers had to kind of accept that there’s only so much protection we can provide. These guys are really off in this land where they have to navigate some of this risk themselves. But they had already been doing that for years. You know, they are well-seasoned whistleblowers. And if you see the film, then you know, they’ve been retaliated against before. And so they are really battle-scarred. And we really left it up to them. We would say, “You tell us what we can do to support. How can we make sure you guys are protected legally as whistleblowers?” We were also in contact with their families and their network. We had sort of a phone tree network in case anything happened to them.
The Alabama Solution has been available on HBO Max for a few months now. Do you feel like there’s been any pressure from this national attention for some of the leaders dealing with prisons, whether that be within the Department of Corrections itself or the Alabama legislature, to make any reforms to the prison system? Have you seen any progress?
Well, there’s definitely pressure. The question is always: Will Alabama leaders care about that? Will they listen? Will they engage with this issue?
I think that this legislative session, there are a couple of bills that are making their way through the legislature, including a new prison oversight bill with a Republican sponsor who has cited the film as one of the driving forces for him to call for more oversight. I’ve noticed him and others speaking about these issues in a way that feels more appropriate.
Unfortunately, I think Alabama leaders have been reluctant to admit the scope of the problem and the underlying issues that need to be addressed. So, where they were willing to say some of these facilities are horrible and people are living in squalor, the solution in their minds was just to build more. The problem with that is they’re living in squalor because we have far too many people in prison for too long, and we need to reduce the prison population. We need to create pathways out of prison and normalize freedom. But that requires some really deep policy work that they don’t seem willing to do.
So I have seen some renewed energy. I’ve also seen families that are directly impacted really be galvanized in a new way. The film has become an organizing tool for them. After the film came out in October of 2025, several weeks later, there was a prison oversight meeting and there were so many people that showed up, they had to move it to a bigger room. There have been a couple of events where hundreds of people have shown up. I think a lot of the families, many of them who look like Stephen Davis’ family, feel like they’re finally being acknowledged and seen. So I get the sense that this has lit a fire in them, and the pressure is really coming from them more than outside the state.
There’s this mentality that’s very hard to break through, which is that if you go to prison, you deserve to be there. It’s going to be bad. It’s not meant to be a vacation. You’ve heard it all, obviously, more than I have.
Yes.
There’s something at the end of the documentary that says – This isn’t just happening in Alabama. Similar things are happening across the country. I think the more national attention it gets, it’s almost like a civic duty in my mind to watch this documentary as an Alabamian to understand what’s going on.
Absolutely.
If you’re paying your taxes to these prisons, if you’re going to have an opinion about it, you need to watch the realities. That’s what’s so powerful, the storytelling process factor of the film kind of allows people to see past their generalizations of everything and connect with real people.
Yeah, we really wanted to give people a chance to be proximate to incarcerated folks. Because if you don’t have any skin in the game, if you don’t have a family member locked up, it’s very easy to fall into that trap that they’re all there for a reason. Prisons aren’t supposed to be a country club. But this acceptance that prisons are awful and brutal and horrible, that’s actually not what they were designed to be, what their mandate is. That’s not what people are sentenced to. People are sentenced to a loss of liberty, period. That doesn’t include being subjected to drug trafficking, sexual assault, or getting stabbed. I mean, all these things that happen in prisons regularly, and the normalization of that.
So, that was our desire to give people a chance to sort of dwell with these people and have folks like Robert Earl, Melvin, and Raoul be in conversation with the powerful people and really let the audience in on these two very separate and different conversations that are happening at the same time. You realize who’s telling the truth and who isn’t as you sit with the film, but there’s also a stigma-breaking action that’s happening.
A lot of people have said, “I was really struck by how intelligent these men are and how articulate they are and how they’re able to do this really courageous thing despite the risk.” And it’s like, yes, people in prison are all those things and many other things. But it’s also true that many people in prison have caused harm, you know? So it’s a lot to hold as a human being when you’re considering people in prison. And I think the easy thing for many people to do is to say they’re in there for a reason, you know, screw them. But that doesn’t really take any work. The work is really engaging with them as human beings and thinking about who all these folks are and what the hell we are doing to them and why.
Absolutely. Beth, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me. It’s been a pleasure to talk about the film. I’m so excited that it’s been nominated for an Oscar. Is there anything else that we should know about The Alabama Solution?
Just that I hope people watch. We also created a website (thealabamasolution.com) that we kind of like to consider the receipts for the film. There’s a database of the more than 1300 people who died during the making of the film. 2023 was a record year for deaths. I believe it was 377 people who died that year in the prison system. That’s an astronomical number. Prison systems that have tens of thousands more incarcerated people have much lower annual deaths. So we thought it was important to track those cases and create an archive of them to show this isn’t just anecdotal cherry picking of a couple of bad things that happened in the prisons. This really is like a global system-wide failure.
There’s also, if people feel called to do more, a Take Action button that will take you to the film’s impact campaign and some action items that people can participate in to get involved.
Awesome. And of course, The Alabama Solution is streaming on HBO Max. Thank you so much again, Beth, and we will see you all in the Wasteland.
