Guest AuthorWhere is the outrage? The news that University of South Florida anthropologists found 55 bodies buried on the property of the Dozier School for Boys in Marianna prompted the usual anger from former inmates and relatives of boys who died there.
But the silence from our state’s legal and political establishment is disconcerting.
Attorney General Pam Bondi? No comment. Gov. Rick Scott? He was too busy preparing to swear in his new lieutenant governor.
State Attorney Glenn Hess, in whose district the school is located? He declined to prosecute in 2010 following a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation. Hess claimed the statute of limitations had expired on the lesser crimes alleged by victims. His action strongly suggests that whatever occurred at Dozier happened too long ago for it to matter now. But time doesn’t offer immunity for murder. Hess’ reticence in light of the anthropologists’ new finding says that he has not changed his mind even though the results of the excavation emphasizes the inadequacy of the FDLE’s work.
Prior to their excavation, USF anthropologists produced a report showing as many as 98 deaths at the school, more than the FDLE investigation. They are exhuming the bodies to identify them and return them to their families.
“To pass over crimes of this magnitude without investigation seems the very definition of injustice,” Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School and the author of “The Master Switch,” recently wrote.
Erin Kimmerle, who is leading the excavation effort, projects that his team might find more than 100 bodies. That would be twice as many as anthropologists were led to expect based on state records. Given the demographics of the school’s inmate population, that sounds like a high mortality trend. Some of the boys might have died from natural causes, but with the school’s reputation for harsh and cruel treatment, it’s more than likely some of those deaths were criminal.
As the grim task of identification and DNA matching commences in earnest, the bones and other fragments will speak for the dead. But what about the rest of us?
The Florida School for Boys opened in 1900 and closed in 2011 in the wake of a Tampa Bay Times series alleging widespread beatings, torture, isolation and more by staff.
But a brief look at its sordid history makes a strong argument that the institution should have been shuttered a long time ago. During the more than 110 years of the school’s existence, it has been dogged by accusations of abuse and murder. Superintendents and staff got fired but has anyone been sent to prison for misconduct at the Marianna facility? If not, it’s time someone did.
Dozier belongs in the pantheon of state-run houses of horror along with places such as Willowbrook State School, which was closed by New York State in 1983. As the anthropologists sift through the soil, it’s time for the investigators to go back over the records until they are satisfied that every body, every death is accounted for and they are satisfied that none of the deaths were criminal.
History has taught us that state-sanctioned abusers are meticulous record keepers. History has also taught us that grieving survivors will never rest until their dead get justice.
Andrew J. Skerritt is an assistant professor of journalism at Florida A&M University. He lives in Tallahassee.
