Alabama Faces Deadline To Address Dangerous And Deadly Prison Conditions

In December, 33-year old Ryan Rust was found dead in his solitary cell at Alabama's Holman prison, a belt around his neck with one end tied to a bar in the cell window.

"He's my little brother," says Harmony Rust-Bodke. She keeps his ashes in a gilded red urn in honor of his favorite college football team. "That's the crimson color cause he is an Alabama fan," she says.

The U.S. Department of Justice has put the state of Alabama on notice to fix dangerous and deadly prison conditions or face a lawsuit that could result in a federal takeover of the prison system.

Federal investigators found that Alabama routinely violates the constitutional rights of prisoners by failing to protect them from prisoner-on-prisoner attacks and sexual abuse. It cites cases of inmate deaths, rapes, and extortion of the families of prisoners.

So far this year there have been 8 homicides, and 8 suicides inside Alabama's prisons.

Rust-Bodke says her brother, Ryan Rust, was back in prison on a parole violation and found the conditions unbearable