Guest AuthorIf it seems like just a couple of years ago that the Florida Department of Corrections announced the closure of seven prisons and four work camps. That’s because it is.
The department’s January 2012 press release announcing the closings attributed their need to “declining prison admissions and excess bed space.” By fiscal year 2012/13 the savings would come to $75 million a year, the department said.
It was clearly a hallelujah moment for Gov. Rick Scott, who on the campaign trail had vowed a billion-dollar reduction in the $2.4-billion-dollar corrections budget and this move helped a bit.
Flash forward to November 2013 and the Department of Corrections announcement that prison admissions are increasing and the closed prisons would need to be reopened at a cost of $59 million. Why it saves more to close prisons and costs less to re-open them was not immediately explained.
This yo-yo fluctuation in projections should come as no surprise, given Florida’s long and twisted approach to penal policy. Like the rest of the country, Florida has taken the “minimum mandatory” approach to sentencing and the budgetary pragmatic approach to early release, though it seems to play that game with greater vigor than the rest.
Mandatory minimums send prisoners through the prison front door with a heavy load ahead e.g. 20 years for discharging a firearm during the commission of a felony, 10 for possession. But depending on prison capacity, early release policies fluctuate.
In 1983, for example, the parole system that had been in operation since 1941 was replaced by a guidelines-and-gain-time system, which tended to jail offenders with a lighter load and set them free sooner if they behaved.
In 1987 the laws were altered again with the unequivocally stated budget-driven goal of reducing the prison population. From then on, most of the “reform” of sentencing and release policy erred on the side of severity, longer sentences with less chance of early release, the budget be damned. Florida offenders must serve 85 percent of their sentence even if they were to evolve into a modern day Albert Schweitzer.
But now, for the first time in years, some legislators are wondering if Floridians are getting their money’s worth and asking if the billions spent on jailing people is paying a dividend in safety.
With approximately 103,000 people under lock and key, Florida has the third highest prison population in America. New York, with a larger base population, imprisons only about 60,000 (As a nation we imprison more people than China.)
A recent study by the Pew Center on the States concluded that Florida’s non-violent drug offenders served 194 per cent more jail time in 2009 than in 1999, a nation-leading statistic. So, by any measure, Florida’s approach to incarceration is a bust. It jails too many. It costs too much. And it does little to keep the streets safe.
The growing movement toward “smart justice” – shorter jail time for non-violent crimes, occupational therapy, more effective probation – might be catching on in Florida if some recent musings by key legislators are any indication.
Many offenders deserve to be sent away for a very long time with little chance of early release, but too many don’t. What they need is an opportunity for rehabilitation so they can get back on a track and become tax-paying, law-abiding citizens again.
If the state doesn’t start taking that approach, it will pay the price — the price of building more jails, paying more guards, feeding more prisoners.
And yes, coping with more crime because if the only re-education inmates get is from their friends inside, crime will be the only job they’ll be qualified to handle.
