Guest Author
I believe in second chances. It’s what I do.
Everyone, including my late father, makes mistakes. Some of those mistakes, like my father’s mistakes, mean prison time. That’s why every year the Florida Department of Corrections releases about 30,000 men and women from prison. But for the vast majority of them, it doesn’t include a real second chance.
All but a few hundred of these inmates leave prison with a bus ticket, $50 and the clothes on their backs.
But not the men and women I work with at Bridges of America.
During our more than 30 years working with the department, we’ve been rehabilitating, educating and preparing men and women to return to society. And it’s not just for their benefit.
Inmate re-entry programs help make communities safer and save taxpayers money. When we stop the cycle of repeat prison time we save money, we keep families together, and we prevent crime.
This is exactly why lawmakers all across Florida, including Florida House Majority Leader Dana Young, Florida Senate Criminal Justice Chairman Greg Evers and basically the entire Broward legislative delegation came to our defense when the Florida Department of Corrections and Secretary Julie Jones abruptly told us we needed to stop what we are doing at our Broward Bridge Program.
First, they told us they wanted to continue and we applied, then they said there wasn’t enough competition, then they told us erroneously that there was re-zoning, then they told us Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel was the problem and causing a public safety issue, and this went on and on.
In the meantime, our contracts with the department were expiring.
And I got desperate. Not because we lacked support, not because we were tired of fighting and not because we lacked the will to expose what was really happening behind closed doors — but because of faces.
I saw the faces of our inmates, the faces of our staff and the faces of family members.
I knew we could continue our path of fighting the department tooth and nail, and we would have probably done a lot of long-term good, but at a massive cost — hundreds of second chances.
I couldn’t look our inmates, families and staff in the face and tell them they needed to sacrifice their second chance because of what the department was doing. I needed to save as many second chances as possible.
So that’s what I did — we settled.
In doing so, we saved hundreds of second chances in both Broward and Manatee counties.
It cost us hundreds more future opportunities, eventually up to seven figures in costs, litigation and upgrade fees, and it cost us one of our valuable programs at our Turning Point Facility.
But I had to do it. I had to save as many of these second chances as possible.
Luckily, I know that this issue is now front, center and exposed so incoming House Speaker Richard Corcoran, Senate President Joe Negron and influential senators like Jeff Brandes can help fix it when they come back to Tallahassee for the 2017 Florida Legislative Session.
Thank you to everyone who wrote, called or met with Scott, Jones and local lawmakers — and the Sun Sentinel editorial board. We would have lost even more without you.
Thank you for believing in us, and believing in second chances.
Lori Costantino-Brown is president and CEO of Bridges of America.
