Florida’s Department of Corrections isn’t just in crisis, it’s suffering a catastrophe.
Just last week, the Miami Herald reported on secret video footage recorded by a current Florida Department of Corrections prisoner, Scott Whitney. It shows collapsing prison infrastructure, overwhelmed guards, and rampant prisoner drug use. These problems extend to female correctional facilities, where the Department of Justice is now investigating an epidemic of guard extortion against inmates.
Sadly, this only the tip of the iceberg.
Florida’s prison system is overwhelmed, underfunded, and fundamentally unfit for purpose. It might not be an obvious vote winner, but the state’s popular conservative governor, Ron DeSantis, must address this crisis head on. There’s a way to do it that protects public safety and improves standards, but also controls taxpayer costs.
In recent testimony before the Florida Senate, Florida Department of Corrections Secretary Mark Inch identified one major problem: staff shortages. The problem can be traced back to 2013, when then-Gov. Rick Scott, now a U.S. senator, starved the department of funding. Rather than hiring new guards, for example, Scott chose to increase guard shift rotations from 8 hours to 12 hours. The results have been catastrophic.
Inch testified that stress for overworked guards has, since 2013, led to a 150% staff turnover rate, multi-digit increases in staff-on-inmate and inmate-on-inmate violence, a staggering 484% inmate contraband increase, and a 549% increase in correctional officer overtime. As Florida Politics notes, Inch wants to expand staff bonuses, is requesting $60 million to help fill some of the department’s 3,000 vacancies, and $29 million to return to eight hour shifts in some facilities. Inch is already offering $1,000 hiring bonuses to bring new staff into the most understaffed facilities.
Inch deserves credit for taking his department’s problems seriously. But his reforms will only paper over the gaping chasm between his means and needs. With nearly 100,000 prisoners under its control and a budget of approximately $2.7 billion, the department needs bold action from its political leaders. Only they can do what is necessary to fix things.
Florida Democratic state Sen. Randolph Bracy recently introduced a bill that would reduce from 85% to 65% the minimum time nonviolent prisoners must serve of their prison sentences. Bracy’s bill offers a senate counterpart to a similar Florida House bill. It would reward those who behave in prison and advance their education. And Republican state Sen. Jeff Brandes told Florida Politics that the bill would also save $860 million over the next five years.
Some of that money could be used to hire more guards and improve facilities without increasing tax bills. Brandes also deserves credit for his push to end mandatory minimum sentences in certain scenarios.
To be sure, these reforms alone won’t solve the Florida prison crisis. More must be done to restart recently closed community education-job centers. Graduates from those programs have far lower recidivism rates than prisoners from standard correctional facilities. So too should Florida judges provide alternatives-to-prison for young, first time offenders. When you send an 18 or 19-year-old kid into a Florida prison run by gangs, he’s unlikely to come out as a 23-year-old model citizen. And judges should stop issuing life-without-parole sentences for prisoners who aren’t repeat violent offenders — or those, like Todd Buchanan, who don’t kill or disable their victims.
Nevertheless, it’s good that Florida politicians are beginning to take this issue seriously. Where Rick Scott manifestly failed, Ron DeSantis and his colleagues can show that compassionate, beneficial, Trump-era bipartisanship is possible.
