Associated Press
A Florida lawmaker says basic necessities such as toilet paper and soap are being withheld from inmates in some prisons in the state.
On a weekend visit to Tomoka Correctional Institution near Daytona Beach, Miami Beach Rep. David Richardson found inmates without toilet paper, soap and pillows. One cell block had roaches and rats. He said he found one inmate with a wound that had gone untreated for days and another who was vomiting in his cell.
During a January visit to Baker Correctional Institution in north Florida, Richardson said, he found inmates without toilet paper and toothbrushes.
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 told the Miami Herald.
The Baker Correctional warden was “embarrassed,” said Richardson, and after the lawmaker complained to the Florida Department of Corrections, agency officials “were apologetic and put out an all-points bulletin that this was wrong.”
But the problem has continued, Richardson said, as evidenced by his visit to Tomoka Correctional last weekend. When toilet paper runs out, inmates use dampened notebook paper, newspaper or ripped bedsheets, Richardson said.
“This was the worst situation I have witnessed since that infamous Friday night at Baker many months ago,” Richardson wrote about the Tomoka Correctional visit in an email to a corrections official. “Apparently, your staff still do not understand it is inhumane to deny inmates with basic personal hygiene products, especially toilet paper.”
A Florida Department of Correction spokeswoman told the newspaper the agency doesn’t withhold hygiene products.
“The department does not withhold hygiene products from inmates and works continually to ensure all health, safety and hygiene standards are being met within our 149 facilities,” said spokeswoman Michelle Glady in an email.
Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
6 comments
Reid Friedson, PhD
July 20, 2017 at 4:49 pm
Florida still uses private prisons using body commissions. The Governor continues to violate civil rights and he has upheld documented conviction frame-ups. Please sign and share the People of Florida’s July 4, 2016 petition to the United States Justice Department and 2017-18 Florida Constitution Revision Commission: https://www.change.org/p/people-of-the-state-of-florida-v-rick-scott-et-al
Ellen V. Moore
July 20, 2017 at 4:53 pm
Do prison personnel believe that humiliating prisoners by withholding hygiene items enhances the punishments, speeds repentance and remorse, and results in reformation of criminals, or does jail personnel training in elementary psychology suggest that humiliation, brutality, and sadism generally assure prisoner on prisoner violence, prison unrest, and recidivism?
Karen Leidy
July 20, 2017 at 5:41 pm
Well said!
Karen Leidy
July 20, 2017 at 5:46 pm
Well said Ellen Moore. Prisons should not treat anyone this way. How does anybody have a chance to rehab themselves if they are treated in such a dehumanizing manner.
StPete
July 20, 2017 at 5:56 pm
Based on their past reported behavior, it’s pretty clear the staff, and/or prison leadership, doesn’t much care whether or not denying basic hygiene is to prisoners is “humane.”
Jodi N Hart
July 23, 2017 at 11:07 am
They need a task force put in place to oversee this situation. It is disgusting and the majority of correctional officers are treating all prisioners as animals and not providing them with basic necessities. Try interviewing thousands of families who go to visit and witness this daily.
Legislators should continue to make unannounced visits to facilities and after 3 warnings for prisons to correct these issues. If they have not they should be terminated or fined.
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