Advocacy group asks Dept. of Corrections to turn over its budget documents

A advocacy group representing a coalition pursuing prison and sentencing reform has filed a public records request with the Florida Department of Corrections in an effort to find out if other options were considered before the agency moved forward with a plan to cut $28 million from treatment and transition programs. 

Read more: Legislature left $28 million hole in prison budget. Now essential programs are cut.

"There are a number of better alternatives to addressing FDOC’s budget shortfall than cutting critical programs that are proven to help incarcerated people transition from prison to healthy, productive lives and prevent them from reoffending," wrote Shalini Goel Agarwal with the Florida Office of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a member of the Florida Campaign for Criminal Justice Reform in the records request. "For instance, dozens of other states have adopted bipartisan criminal justice reforms that are reducing prison populations, saving tax dollars and improving public safety,''

The group says the agency, "the Scott administration and legislators have turned a blind eye to Florida’s excessive incarceration policies, and the financial strain resulting from over-incarceration."

The coalition suggests that Gov. Rick Scott and lawmakers should have considered using rainy day funds "before announcing these misguided and dangerous budget cuts."

Specifically, it is looking for access to: 

● Electronic copies of all emails dated from March 11, 2018 to present related to the
recently announced budget shortfall and/or cuts to program funding sent to or from
Secretary Julie Jones, Chief Financial Officer Kimberly Banks, Budget and Financial
Management Chief Mark Tallent, and/or Community Programs Chief Shawn Satterfield.
● Copies of any cost analysis or report related to these budget cuts.

Download FLCCJR DOC records request - FINAL 050818

Florida is afraid of its prison system. Senators have ideas to fix it but can they get them through the House?

Lobbyist Barney Bishop stood up before a Senate committee Wednesday and wrote the direct mail campaign ad every legislator fears.

“You’re helping drug traffickers,” he said of the bill before the Senate Justice Appropriations Subcommittee that will give judges discretion when sentencing non-violent drug offenders to prison. “Do you know how much pot you’ve got to have to meet the trafficking minimum for this bill? You have to have 25 pounds. That’s 25 backpacks.”

It is exactly the kind of out-of-context rhetoric that worries lawmakers as they consider legislation aimed at shrinking something else that scares them: Florida’s expensive prison system. The idea behind the package of reforms is to slow the prison revolving door by diverting non-violent drug felons from prison to local jails, and treating those with mental illness and addiction while they are locked up. The savings from prisons is used to pay for the programs.

Similar reforms have been successfully adopted in dozens of other states, fueled by a rare coalition of conservative and liberal activists, yet Florida remains an outlier.

Several bills that make small but powerful changes to state law are inching towards passage in the Florida Senate with bi-partisan support and little fanfare but, as has been the case for years, progress is slow if not non-existent in the Florida House. House Speaker Richard Corcoran of Land O’Lakes is considering a run for governor and wants to avoid antagonizing the more conservative factions of his party. Story here. 

Florida is afraid of its prison system. Senators have ideas to fix it but can they get them through the House?

Lobbyist Barney Bishop stood up before a Senate committee Wednesday and wrote the direct mail campaign ad every legislator fears.

“You’re helping drug traffickers,” he said of the bill before the Senate Justice Appropriations Subcommittee that will give judges discretion when sentencing non-violent drug offenders to prison. “Do you know how much pot you’ve got to have to meet the trafficking minimum for this bill? You have to have 25 pounds. That’s 25 backpacks.”

It is exactly the kind of out-of-context rhetoric that worries lawmakers as they consider legislation aimed at shrinking something else that scares them: Florida’s expensive prison system. The idea behind the package of reforms is to slow the prison revolving door by diverting non-violent drug felons from prison to local jails, and treating those with mental illness and addiction while they are locked up. The savings from prisons is used to pay for the programs.

Similar reforms have been successfully adopted in dozens of other states, fueled by a rare coalition of conservative and liberal activists, yet Florida remains an outlier.

Several bills that make small but powerful changes to state law are inching towards passage in the Florida Senate with bi-partisan support and little fanfare but, as has been the case for years, progress is slow if not non-existent in the Florida House. House Speaker Richard Corcoran of Land O’Lakes is considering a run for governor and wants to avoid antagonizing the more conservative factions of his party. Story here. 

Myriad of criminal justice reforms on the table for 2018 session

Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri. [Tampa Bay Times]

 

The first day of session was jam-packed for the Florida Senate Committee on Criminal Justice, which passed several reform bills Tuesday with support from civil rights groups and mixed reactions from law enforcement.

Bills that were approved by the committee include measures to ease sentences for theft convictions for items worth less than $1,500, create an additional type of conditional release for inmates with "debilitating illnesses" and grant legal immunity to those who call emergency services in overdose situations.

The committee also voted to advance a bill designed to close a "loophole" in statute that requires internet providers to alert their customers when they have been subpoenaed for child pornography on that person's computer, potentially giving them time to destroy evidence or even harm the children involved.

"This bill will literally save the lives of children," said a lieutenant from Brevard County Sheriff's Office who spoke during the meeting.

Many of the bills passed Tuesday were sponsored by the chairman of the committee, Sen. Randolph Bracy, D-Orlando.

While not yet holding a vote, he also foreshadowed one of his other bills by having multiple speakers, including Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, speak about supervised bail programs, like the ones used in Pinellas County since 2014. These programs, now used in several other states, provide alternatives to traditional bail bonds, which can trap the poor in jail and unnecessarily fill jails with people who would show up for their court dates regardless, the speakers said.

In contrast to Gualtieri, the Florida Smart Justice Alliance, a conservative criminal justice reform group that represents law enforcement in several red parts of the state, declared their opposition to several of these proposals.

"Every sheriff in the state doesn't agree with what Sheriff Gualtieri is doing," said Barney Bishop, CEO of the group. "It's a progressive idea … let's pilot this where sheriffs want to do it, let's not force it on a sheriff."

Julie Jones on corrections officers who mocked inmate who died: I'm outraged

via @jkbrownjournalist

A group of Florida correctional officers excoriated a dead inmate on social media, saying that the 27-year-old prisoner — who suffered from a genetic blood disorder and died after being gassed by officers — deserved what he got.

The officers, writing on a private Facebook page for Florida corrections officers that has 6,000 members, called the inmate a “bitch,’’ an “assh---e,’’ and other expletives as part of a lengthy thread that followed the posting of a story published in the Miami Herald last Wednesday.

The Miami Herald could reach only two of those whose names were attached to the comments. One, who said he recently left the Florida Department of Corrections, acknowledged his post. Story here: 

A news story told how an inmate was fatally gassed. Some guards are mocking the dead man.

 

Judge rejects Department of Corrections' request to throw out lawsuit in prison death of Jordan Aparo

By @ceostroff

Even in a prison system known for questionable deaths, the case of Randall Jordan-Aparo stands out. Jordan-Aparo, a petty criminal known to suffer from a serious blood disorder, was gassed by corrections officers at Franklin Correctional Institution while pleading for medical attention. He collapsed and died in his cell, his corpse and clothing coated with a noxious, orange residue.

After his family sued, the the Florida Department of Corrections asked for the lawsuit to be tossed out.

This past week, the department got its answer: an emphatic no. Story here:

When a sickly inmate was gassed to death, Florida found no fault. A judge may disagree.

Prison visits halted for the weekend as Florida fears uprisings related to national prisoner rights march

@jkbjournalist

Visitation to all Florida state prisons has been canceled this weekend after evidence surfaced that inmates are planning possible uprisings to coincide with Saturday’s march for prisoners’ human rights in Washington, D.C.

Julie Jones, Secretary for the Florida Department of Corrections, announced the move as a precaution, given the agency’s staff shortage and “credible intelligence’’ that groups of inmates at several institutions were planning disturbances.

“There’s no reason to be alarmed. We are just being proactive,’’ said Michelle Glady, a spokeswoman for the department. The agency is taking preemptive steps to secure facilities so that staff and inmates will be secure, she said. Story here. 

Why do Florida prisons deprive inmates of toilet paper?

The four wings of Florida's Tomoka Correctional Institution’s E cell block is home to some of the prison’s most menacing inmates. They have arrived there because of administrative and disciplinary problems but, in addition to restricting them to confined, two-man cells, the prison also deprives them of society's most basic necessities.

Toilet paper.

In prison after prison over seven months, Rep. David Richardson, D-Miami Beach, reported that toilet paper, toothbrushes, toothpaste, pillows, sheets, shirts and soap were often withheld from inmates, especially those in confinement.

Richardson, who has been on a one-man mission to hold the state’s troubled prison agency accountable, first observed the toilet paper troubles during a Jan. 19 visit to Baker Correctional Institution in northern Florida. After finding dozens of inmates without toilet paper, toothbrushes and other supplies, he asked the prison warden to open the storage unit just feet away from the inmate dorms, and deliver hygiene products with him to more than 50 inmates.

“It is behavior that is intended to dehumanize them — treating them like an animal,’’ Richardson said.

The warden at Baker Correctional “was embarrassed,’’ he said, as they walked from cell to cell delivering the tissue paper rolls. He complained to headquarters and “they were apologetic and put out an all-points bulletin that this was wrong.”

But the problem continued. During his fourth visit on to Tomoka Correctional near Daytona Beach on Saturday, Richardson said the situation was “deplorable.’’

“E1-219 no toilet paper, no pillow. Out of TP since 8am Friday,’’ he wrote in notes he sent to state prison officials Saturday, which he forwarded to the Miami Herald. “E1-218, out of TP since last night...E1-210, no pillow case; roaches and rats a big problem in the cell block...E1-214, no pillow, no soap.”

His notes detailed his findings of 37 cells. He found one inmate so sick he was throwing up and his roommate had been deprived of his inhaler for more than a month. Another inmate had an “open, weeping wound” and for days had no treatment. Windows in many of the dorms that have no air conditioning wouldn’t crank open for proper ventilation. Several inmates wore shirts and pants that were threadbare, torn or barely hanging on.

Until now, Richardson said he had not gone public about his findings about the hygiene products, hoping his reports and complaints to the FDC would change behavior.

“I’m not seeking publicity for myself. I'm seeking change,’’ he said Wednesday. “I wanted to work with them and see if they could get their problem under control and change behavior without being publicly shamed.”

It didn't work. Read more here. 

Legislature rewards Geo Group with $3 million deal to provide rehabilitation programming at its private prisons

Department of Corrections Secretary Julie Jones was visiting Graceville Correctional Facility, the private prison in North Florida run by The Geo Group, when she spotted a paperweight with a picture of handcuffs imprinted on it and the words “Continuum of Care.”

She was startled, and a bit angry, to learn that the company had started branding an idea developed by a member of her staff, Abe Uccello, and was using it to promote a new line of business.

“I said, ‘You son-of-a-guns,’ ” Jones recalled of the meeting in late 2015. “They had taken a white paper of Abe’s and stolen the entire thing — the content — and claimed to have patented it.”

Jones was determined not to share anything again with the private prison vendor “because I don’t want them to profit off of what we’re trying to do,” she told the Herald/Times in an April 2017 interview. But Florida legislative leaders had a different idea.

In March 2016, legislators approved $330,000 for The Geo Group to operate a pilot program to be run at Blackwater Correctional, using the ideas Jones said Uccello had developed for Florida’s state-run prison system. This year, lawmakers expanded the program to $3 million, with the money going exclusively to four of The Geo Group’s five private prisons in Florida — Bay, Moore Haven, South Bay, and Blackwater — “for the provision of enhanced in-prison and post-release recidivism reduction programs.” Read more here. 

Nine prison contracts had 'numbers fudged,' Richardson reveals. Will legislators do anything?

"All 9 contracts that I had audited had the numbers fudged,'' declared Rep. David Richardson, D-Miami Beach, on Wednesday as he wrapped up a 10-minute speech moments before the House voted 89-26 for its draft of the budget.

The retired forensic auditor urged his House colleagues to require more accountability over the private prison contracts as he detailed the abuses he found, offering a level of scrutiny not often seen on the floor of a legislative chamber.

For the last two years, Richardson has been on a one-man crusade to inspect the state's trouble prison system. He described how the state's seven private prison contracts get an audit when they come to an end but "they never have an end" because they have been routinely renewed without going out for bid. He spoke about how he has audited several contracts, made 90 prison visits, met 300 inmates and devoted 700 hours to his probe.

"My audits have shown that the money is not being spent the way we we think we're spending it,'' he said. 

His review of the massive prison agency comes in the same year House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Land O'Lakes, and his deputies have made a point of calling out "corporate welfare" and questionable contracts at two much smaller state agencies, Enterprise Florida and Visit Florida.

But on Wednesday Richardson was greeted by polite stares from Republican leaders -- and no reaction. 

"What I would like to see is some provisional language in this budget that would allow more safeguards and more oversight because what I have found is that we have a lot of spending going on but we have very little oversight,'' the Democrat said. "Many of you may not know this, but in the entirety of the life of private prisons there has never been one financial audit of a private prison operator. Not one."

He said he just completed an audit of six contracts with two private non-profit vendors hired to provide prison work release programming. He said that in 2012, Gov. Rick Scott recommended privatizing the facilities and suggested that it would save the state $460,000 over nine months. 

By 2014, the Florida Department of Corrections did privatize the contracts and, documents show, they promised $550,000 a year in savings. But a review of all contracts led Richardson to a different conclusion:

"We are not saving a dime,'' he said. Instead, the agency engaged in a "shell game that perpetrated this little trick."

When an inmate goes out to work in a job outside of prison, the work release facility keeps 55 percent of the net earnings to recover the cost of room and board, and the inmate keeps the rest, Richardson explained. But, during the recession, the Florida Legislature swept the revenue from the Department of Corrections' work release programs and used it to fund other agencies and projects in general revenue.

Florida's general revenue grew, but the state's deficit-ridden Department of Corrections fell further into the red. Then the equation changed when the governor and Legislature decided to privatize the six work release facilities.

"They gave away the general revenue,'' Richardson said. "The six facilities were bringing in $2.1 million into the state coffers every year -- our share of the 55 percent of net income,'' he explained, but the contracts the vendors signed with the state allowed them to keep the money. 

"How could so many people knowledgeable about these contracts not see that?" he asked. "So rather than saving $550,000...we are losing over $1 million to the State of Florida. And it's a nice little shell game that got played because people didn't talk about that little bucket of money."

"Friends,'' Richardson pleaded. "We have got to take a serious look into these contracts. I have now audited 9 contracts...and all 9 contracts that I had audited had the numbers fudged to justify privatization. And it's time for this body and this Legislature to take a serious look at how we are spending the taxpayers' money."

In a oblique reference to the powerful special interests that hire lobbyists, he added: "The taxpayers back home don't have a lobbyist here.

"But wait! They do,'' he said facetiously. "It's you and it's me. You see we got sent here to be the lobbyist for the taxpayer, to make sure that their dollars were spent wisely and so we need to do our job as legislators and hold everybody accountable so that every dollar is accounted for."

He concluded by asking for more language in the budget that "will hold these facilities more accountable and for us to be responsible for our taxpayers back home."

Photo: Rep. David Richardson, D-Miami Beach, speaks on the House floor. Courtesy of Rep. David Richardson.