Birmingham Personal Injury And Criminal Defense Law Blog

Alabama has a prison problem. Not a crime problem, but the problems that come from warehousing too many inmates in too few prisons without adequate personnel, health care, access to social programs and other necessities.

In 2019, the United States Department of Justice issued a report that detailed horrific conditions inside Alabama's prisons, where inmate-on-inmate violence was the norm, not the exception. Stabbings, sexual assaults and suicides have been on the climb for the last decade.

A car is a complex, powerful machine that always carries the potential risk for catastrophic injuries and even death. However, since use is so common in the United States, it is easy for drivers to overlook these risks and the dangers they face. Driving becomes, rather than a dangerous and thrilling activity, something mundane and boring.

This mindset often leads to distracted driving. It's easy for your mind to wander when you're bored. Maybe you even actively look for distraction, trying anything to feel more active and engaged -- though not with driving. If people would step back and think about the risks, the dangers and the complexities of driving, they'd focus on the task at hand, but the reality is that most people lose sight of this fairly quickly after getting a license.

Cameras are everywhere these days. Almost everyone seems to have a powerful little camera and recording device right in their pockets now that cellular phones are pretty much standard equipment for anybody leaving their home. However, the surveillence of your life may be more prevalent than you realize.

Especially in Birmingham, Alabama. According to Captain Thurmond of the Birmingham Police Department, video cameras designed to curtail crime in the area have been a success. Homicides, for example, are down 23% in the west precinct since cameras were installed as part of a $3 million initiative started toward the end of 2018. Now that the program has seen some success, it is likely to be expanded.

Falls are a significant source of injury, disability and death to older adults -- and by "older" we mean pretty much anybody 45 years of age or older. Younger people and kids simply tend to endure better -- and heal faster -- when they fall than people who have reached midlife or later.

Here's the thing: Research has long indicated that the majority of falls taken by adults out-of-doors are entirely preventable through just a little bit of environmental management. So what contributes to many falls in adults when they're out and about?

1. Uneven curbs, sidewalks and streets: The vast majority of falls outside -- around 70% -- occur on a hard surface like asphalt or concrete. Most people were simply walking along when they fell -- essentially losing their balance on uneven or damaged ground.
2. Badly-designed parking garages: A large number of people who fall outside do so in a parking deck or garage. Most of the time, they're tripping over the short curbs that are placed in and around spaces as guides for vehicles. This indicates that parking garages aren't being designed with human beings in mind so much as being designed simply to store vehicles.
3. Objects on the ground: Naturally, objects on the ground that shouldn't be there are also a significant source of falls and injuries. Far too often, debris is allowed to accumulate in a parking lot or on a store's floor -- and that's a prescription for trouble when there are shoppers around.