Daniel TilsonFlorida’s prison system is a disaster, a disgrace. But it doesn’t have to stay that way. Real reform is possible, given the presence of ethical, public-spirited motivations and policies on the part of our elected officials.
Unfortunately for prison inmates, their friends and families, local communities, and misinformed middle-class taxpayers, the policies of Gov. Rick Scott and most Republican legislators have made a bad situation worse. And given recent events, motivations seem more rooted in campaign fundraising, cover-your-butt concealment, and conservative, tough-on-criminals pandering.
Ironically enough, on the day Department of Corrections Secretary Michael Crews (Scott’s third corrections secretary since 2011) visited Dade Correctional Institution to demonstrate how seriously the Scott administration was taking a string of inmate suicides and suspicious death investigations, prison management was trying to conceal yet another suspicious death that occurred the day before. As they say, you can’t make this stuff up, not unless you’re writing the next hardcore cable TV prison show.
The attempted cover-up failed and news of it broke the next day. Crews expressed outrage, suspended the deputy warden and moved on with his PR tour of duty. He couldn’t suspend Warden Jerry Cummings, because he’d already done so during his “mea culpa” visit the day before. Cummings was suspended in connection with the death of a mentally ill prisoner hours after being stuck in a scalding hot shower, punishment for going to the bathroom in his cell.
Showing the out-of-touch insensitivity, arrogance and awful decision-making we’ve come to know so well, Gov. Scott waited about 10 days, then this week attended a $10,000 per person fundraiser at the Boca Raton mansion of George Zoley, founder of the GEO Group, America’s second-largest private prison management company, with world headquarters in Boca, too. GEO rakes in $1.5 billion a year from 98 prisons nationwide, almost $100 million from operating five of Florida’s seven privatized prisons.
The problem is, GEO is accused of gross misdeeds in its institutions, especially ones used to warehouse immigrants like the Broward Transitional Center it runs for U.S. Customs & Immigration Enforcement, “the principal investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.” An exhaustive investigation and report on the center that nets GEO $20 million annually uncovered food poisoning, lack of mental health and medical services, rampant sexual abuse, suicides, $3 per minute charges to use phones, and more.
None of that seemed to weigh heavily on Rick Scott. Money is money. Who cares how you make it as long as you donate and raise big bucks for his reelection?
This lack of moral-ethical fiber when it comes to penal justice comes as no surprise. Gov. Scott is one of only seven governors, all Republican, who refuse to enforce national standards for rape prevention in their states’ prisons.
And as the prison and “transitional” detention center populations soared in recent years, Scott and company hacked away at correctional officer staffing and morale, privatizing as many of their jobs as political calculus permitted them to.
A recent Pew Charitable Trust report further highlights the scope of the problem, ranking the state No. 1 nationally for “max-out” inmates. These are prisoners who complete their sentence and are released into communities statewide with no supervision or support services whatsoever. To nobody’s surprise a horribly high percentage land back in prison, costing taxpayers vastly more than the expense of support programs.
None of this makes sense, other than the dollars and cents GEO makes while treating poorly inmates and detainees, then “contributes” to the campaigns of mostly Republican elected officials, including Rick Scott.
There’s no mystery about how to achieve meaningful reform and do right by a prison system. That’s what’s so outrageous and unacceptable here.
There’s a way, a clear right way, to solve this problem. But there’s got to be a will to match. Floridians should make this a high priority issue when they evaluate the candidacies of Gov. Scott and Republican legislators who’ve helped him build a much worse mousetrap, instead of a better one.
Daniel Tilson has a Boca Raton-based communications firm called Full Cup Media, specializing in online video and written content for non-profits, political candidates and organizations, and small businesses. Column courtesy of Context Florida.
