ELMORE, Ala. — Two incarcerated men were killed Thursday during a fight involving a weapon at Elmore Correctional Facility, deepening alarm over an Alabama prison system that federal officials say is unconstitutionally violent and advocates describe as among the deadliest in the nation.
The Alabama Department of Corrections said Damon Lamar Calhoun, 35, and Londell Ramone Nunn Jr., 34, were fatally injured in an altercation with another man in custody, a burst of violence that unfolded inside a prison already plagued by overcrowding, rampant contraband and chronic officer shortages.
Prison officials said Calhoun, Nunn and a third man, identified as 28-year-old Deion Lamar Booth, were discovered in a physical altercation with a weapon on Jan. 15 at the medium-security facility in Elmore County.
Calhoun and Nunn were taken to the prison health care unit, where medical staff attempted life-saving measures but pronounced both men dead; Booth was not injured, according to information released by ADOC.
The bodies of Calhoun and Nunn were sent to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences for autopsies, and ADOC’s Law Enforcement Services Division is investigating the incident and the deaths.
Their killings came less than 24 hours after a separate death at Easterling Correctional Facility and follow a string of suspected overdoses and homicides that have turned Alabama’s prisons into a statewide emergency rather than a corrections system.
Civil rights groups and federal officials have for years warned that Alabama’s prisons for men are so overcrowded, understaffed and violent that they violate the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
The U.S. Department of Justice’s ongoing lawsuit against the state alleges Alabama fails to protect people in custody from prisoner-on-prisoner violence and sexual abuse, provides unsafe and unsanitary conditions, and allows excessive force by officers to go unchecked.
Research from the Equal Justice Initiative shows people are murdered in Alabama prisons at a rate more than five times higher than Alabama residents who are not incarcerated, with homicide rates far outpacing other Southern states.
The organization has also found fatal overdoses and suicides occur at dramatically higher rates behind bars, painting a picture of a system where a sentence of years can quietly become a sentence of death.
Alabama’s prison crisis is fueled by long sentences, aggressive use of incarceration and limited opportunities for early release, policies that have packed aging, decaying prisons far beyond what they were built to hold.
Advocates note that Alabama’s male prison system has been declared unconstitutional by the Justice Department, yet people remain locked in facilities where dorms can house nearly 200 men supervised by a single officer and where violence, drugs and weapons are a constant presence.
A 2025 analysis by Alabama Appleseed reported that deaths behind bars in the state — including homicides, suicides and overdoses — far exceed national rates, with at least a dozen homicides recorded in 2024 alone and many death investigations still unfinished.
Advocates argue that for many Alabamians, especially poor and Black defendants, harsh sentencing and a lack of parole or meaningful rehabilitation turn time-served into death-served, as people perish in facilities repeatedly labeled among the deadliest in America.
A federal court in Montgomery has already ruled that Alabama failed to make required changes to improve mental health care in prisons, citing staff shortages and overcrowding that leave people in daily danger of “deprivation, decompensation, and death.”
The court extended deadlines for the state to meet mandatory staffing benchmarks to mid-2025 and warned that inadequate security fosters an environment of constant danger and psychological harm for incarcerated people.
Meanwhile, the DOJ’s broader case over unconstitutional prison conditions has been pushed toward a 2026 trial date, even as deaths and violence continue mounting in facilities like Elmore.
Prisoner-rights advocates say each new killing — including the deaths of Calhoun and Nunn — underscores the human cost of Alabama’s policy choices on sentencing and incarceration, and they call for lawmakers to embrace sentencing reform, reduce the prison population and invest in treatment and reentry instead of waiting for another body count.