Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women

The Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women is a prison for women of the Alabama Department of Corrections, located in Wetumpka, Alabama. All female inmates entering ADOC are sent to the receiving unit in Tutwiler. Tutwiler houses Alabama's female death row, which qualifies it for the "maximum security" classification.Julia S. Tutwiler On Prison ReformKnown as the "angel of the prisons," Tutwiler pushed for many reforms of the Alabama penal system. In a letter sent from Julia Tutwiler in Dothan, AL to Frank S. White in Birmingham, AL, Tutwiler pushed for key issues such as the end to convict leasing, the re-establishment of night school education, and the separation of minor offenders and hardened criminals. Tutwiler’s letter cites major controversies during her time such as the Banner Mining Incident of 1911, where 125 of the 128 dead miners were convicts, predominately guilty of minor offenses, leased by state prisons. She additionally suggested medical and psychological treatment for convicts such as rehabilitation for drug addicts, sanitation, and nurses to care for dying inmates who lack families willing to visit them. Despite her progressive stance on prison reform, Julia S. Tutwiler also pandered to a segregationist approach to the prison system, advocating the separation of prison inmates by race as it is “important for public welfare to separate them in all other relations- in schools, in travel, and in social life, it would be better for both races if this could be done here also.” She also critiques the education of white inmates in her push for the re-establishment of night school, commenting on how at the state farm in Speigner “there are more white men than negroes who cannot read.”HistoryConstruction on the current Tutwiler Prison was completed in December 1942. The prison, built for $350,000, originally held up to 400 female prisoners. The current Tutwiler replaced the previous Wetumpka State Penitentiary, which was the first state prison. The prison was renamed after Julia Tutwiler, an advocate for education of prisoners and an advocate for improvement of prison conditions; the woman gained the nickname "Angel of the Stockades".