In the South Carolina prison system, accessing Facebook is an offense on par with murder, rape, rioting, escape and hostage-taking. Back in 2012, the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC) made “Creating and/or Assisting With A Social Networking Site” a Level 1 offense [PDF], a category reserved for the most violent violations of prison conduct […]
Senate committee skeptical of Florida DOC chief’s prison reforms
TALLAHASSEE — Florida Department of Corrections Secretary Julie Jones put a positive spin on negative reports about scandal, death and excessive use of force at her agency Monday as she told a Senate committee that the agency faces a “perception problem” but the obstacles are “temporary.” Her assurances that her proposal to spend $15 million […]
FJI & Disability Rights Florida Sue Hotel For Not Providing a Wheelchair Accessible Room
FJI, along with Disability Rights Florida, brought a civil rights lawsuit on behalf of Jennifer Kern under the Florida Civil Rights Act, against the owners of the Days Inn North Beach. Jennifer must use a wheelchair for mobility. Early in 2013, Jennifer made a reservation at the Days Inn and even called ahead to be […]
FJI Sues FDOC & Corizon Seeking Return of Leg Prosthesis for Incarcerated Amputee
Christopher Villanueva lost his left leg in an accident and for years has used a below-the-knew prosthesis. However, prison officials took it away from him when he entered prison. As a result, his leg has shriveled, and he has lost muscle tone and mass because of the non-use of his leg, and he has lost […]
Company’s struggles highlight challenges of inmate care
Months after he landed in Florida’s Manatee County Jail, Jovon Frazier’s pleas for treatment of intense pain in his left shoulder were met mostly with advice that he take Tylenol. “I need to see a doctor!” he wrote on his eighth request form. “I done put a lot of sick calls in & ya’ll keep […]
Court rejects Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s drug testing of welfare applicants
TALLAHASSEE – A federal appeals court on Wednesday dealt another blow to Gov. Rick Scott’s crusade to conduct drug tests on welfare applicants when it upheld a lower court ruling that the practice was unconstitutional. The unanimous ruling from a bipartisan panel of judges concluded that the state failed to show any evidence as to […]
Eleventh Circuit Confirms Suspicionless Drug Testing Unconstitutional
On appeal for a second time, the Eleventh Circuit upheld Judge Scriven’s order and agreed the drug testing program was unconstitutional, affirming the permanent injunction. Read the ACLU’s statement, or you can view media coverage here. Today, a three-judge panel at the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that a 2011 Florida law mandating […]
Gov. Scott’s Top Investigator Quietly Releases Prison Report After Months of Delay
Florida’s chief inspector general Melinda Miguel on Friday quietly released the findings of an internal affairs investigation involving allegations of misconduct against five inspectors with the Florida Department of Corrections. The inspectors, who filed a whistleblower suit against the state and FDOC in August, were accused of acting without authority when they executed a search […]
State Prison Chief Focuses on Inmate Health Care
Department of Corrections secretary Mike Crews is threatening to stop payments to a Missouri-based company that won a five-year, $1.2 billion contract to provide health care to the majority of the state’s prisoners, accusing Corizon of failing to provide adequate treatment. Crews sent a letter to Corizon CEO Woodrow Meyers on Friday saying that the […]
Fred Grimm: Florida prison guards are like characters out of pulp fiction
My review of James Ellroy’s dark, new novel ran in the back pages Sunday. Perfidia described cops in 1941 Los Angeles allowed to employ murderous, sadistic, racist tactics. Their superiors found it convenient not to notice. Perfidia was supposed to be fiction. Historical fiction. But on the front page of that Sunday edition of the […]
5 Fla. prison staffers accused of harming inmate
MIAMI — The Department of Corrections said Thursday that five prison employees have been charged with battery on an inmate, the latest in a string of incidents alleging inmate abuse and cover-ups at Florida prisons. A sixth employee, a captain at Northwest Florida Reception Center in Chipley, was arrested on a charge of official misconduct […]
Florida prison system, under fire, releases data on inmate deaths
Judith Arrascue says she has tried for months to find out what happened to her husband, Luis, a state prison inmate who died at the Lake Butler Reception and Medical Center in April. On Tuesday, Florida’s Department of Corrections unveiled a new online database of inmate deaths that reveals Arrascue died after he “fell down […]
Group sues over alleged abuse at Dade Correctional
The Florida Department of Corrections, Secretary Michael D. Crews, and Wexford Health Systems ignored the widespread torture and abuse that mentally ill inmates have suffered for years at Dade Correctional Institution, a civil lawsuit alleges. Disability Rights Florida, a nonprofit mental health advocacy group, is seeking an injunction to force immediate reforms and investigations into […]
California Revises Policy on Mentally Ill Inmates
California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has introduced new policies for the use of force against mentally ill prisoners that are among the most detailed in the nation. The changes, which were introduced on Friday, were set in motion after videos showed corrections officers in state prisons dousing severely mentally ill inmates with pepper spray […]
Inmate’s Gassing Death Detailed in Florida DOC Whistle-blower Complaint
Four investigators with the Department of Corrections have accused the state of Florida of running a prison system rife with corruption, brutality and officially sanctioned gang violence — and of retaliating against them when they tried to expose what was going on. The four filed a federal whistle-blower complaint on Monday alleging that state prisoners […]
Two Years After Florida Inmate’s Death, Groups Call For Federal Investigation
Human rights and faith-based groups are asking the federal government to investigate how Florida treats mentally ill prisoners. The groups say no one is being held accountable for a man’s gruesome death two years ago. Most people who’ve heard what happened to Darren Rainey in prison likely know the story because of a Miami Herald […]
Our Inmates, Our Burden
Florida leads the nation when it comes to increasingly long prison sentences, charging minors as adults, releasing inmates with no supervision, and denying ex-inmates the right to vote, even after they’ve served their time, according to numerous recent studies. With the third largest prison system in the country, Florida taxpayers pay to house more than […]
ACLU, FJI, and Others Urge Department of Justice to Investigate Grisly Death of Incarcerated Man with Mental Illness
The ACLU of Florida, the Florida Justice Institute, and other civil rights groups have sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder urging the Department of Justice to initiate an investigation of the death of Darren Rainey while in custody at Dade Correctional Institution, and, more broadly, the treatment of mentally ill inmates in Florida […]