Inside HBO’s The Alabama Solution and the Fight for Accountability

A documentary film called *The Alabama Solution* emerged from a six-year investigation after filmmakers were denied official access to Alabama prisons and instead relied on contraband cell phone footage from incarcerated people. The film exposes dangerous and deadly conditions in Alabama's prison system, where over 1,300 inmates have died since 2019, giving the state the nation's highest per capita prison mortality rate despite ongoing federal lawsuits against Alabama for failing to address violence and excessive force. Composers Mark Batson and Chris Hanebutt created a restrained, Americana-influenced score to accompany the raw footage without emotional manipulation, framing the crisis as a national issue rooted in the 13th Amendment's exception allowing forced prison labor.