The Justice Department threatened to sue the Alabama state prison system Wednesday over shocking and brutal conditions uncovered during a two-and-a-half-year investigation into the state’s massively overcrowded facilities.

The department said that it found that prisoners in the Alabama prison system endured some of the highest rates of homicide and rape in the country, and cited a “flagrant disregard” for their constitutional right to be free from excessive and cruel punishment.

[The Times received more than 2,000 photos taken inside an Alabama prison. This is what they showed.]

The Alabama Department of Corrections is already the subject of federal civil rights lawsuits that say prisoners are not protected from violence and are not given proper medical and mental health care. The prisons are severely understaffed, and the department has requested $31 million to hire 500 more correctional officers and raise pay across the board.

The report focused on the failure to prevent prisoner-on-prisoner violence through inadequate training, failure to properly classify and supervise inmates, and failure to stem the flow of contraband including weapons and drugs. “The violations are severe, systemic, and exacerbated by serious deficiencies in staffing and supervision,” the report said. It also cited “the use of segregation and solitary confinement to both punish and protect victims of violence and/or sexual abuse; and a high level of violence that is too common, cruel, of an unusual nature, and pervasive.”

The Justice Department is still investigating excessive force and sexual abuse by prison staff members, an investigation that former federal prosecutors say could lead to criminal indictments.

The department concluded that the Alabama prison system did not protect prisoners from physical and sexual violence at the hands of other prisoners.

[Our reporter went inside St. Clair Correctional Facility in Springville, Ala. He found it was “virtually ungoverned” and the inmates were armed.]

In a single week, the department detailed a horrific list of abuses that included instances of multiple stabbings, prisoners attacking a sleeping man with socks filled with metal locks and a prisoner being forced to perform oral sex at knife point.

The department also concluded that the system does not provide “safe and sanitary” living conditions. Open sewage ran by the pathway that government attorneys used to access one facility, which the state closed soon after the inspectors visited.

Gov. Kay Ivey said the state was already aware of and trying to fix the issues raised by the Justice Department.

“For more than two years, the D.O.J. pursued an investigation of issues that have been the subject of ongoing litigation and the target of significant reforms by the state,” a statement from her office said.

Ms. Ivey, who warned of “horrendous conditions” in the prisons and an impending federal intervention in her State of the State speech in March, said in the statement, “Over the coming months, my administration will be working closely with D.O.J. to ensure that our mutual concerns are addressed and that we remain steadfast in our commitment to public safety, making certain that this Alabama problem has an Alabama solution.”

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