Beth Shelburne is a journalist and writer based in Birmingham. She has done extensive investigative reporting on Alabama’s prison system and was named a 2018-2019 Writing for Justice Fellow with Pen America. She spent 20 years working as a television news reporter and anchor, most recently at WBRC in Birmingham. Beth currently serves as an investigative reporter for the Campaign for Smart Justice with the ACLU of Alabama.
COVID-19 has led many Americans to rethink prison. But a habitual offender law has condemned hundreds of people who never physically hurt anyone to grow old and die behind bars.