Florida Department of Corrections staff briefed a House panel on the structure and status of prison health care Wednesday before detailing some of their 2019-20 budget requests. DOC in recent years has faced budget shortfalls, causing them to make dramatic cuts to inmate health care services. The $55 million shortfall last budget year caused officials to slash substance-abuse, […]
Inmate health costs drive up prison budget in Florida
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (NEWS SERVICE FLORIDA) – Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to fund the Florida Department of Corrections next year at $2.7 billion, a spending plan that has some criminal-justice reform advocates pointing to struggles facing Florida’s prison system as a result of increased health-care costs. Following litigation, the state needs to meet court mandates requiring it […]
‘You’re Going to Let Me Die From This’: Prisoners Fight to Access a Hepatitis-C Cure
On May 15, 2017, after serving 37 years, David Maldonado was released from prison. He had been sentenced to life for a murder he committed when he was 16. But for Maldonado, getting out was about more than freedom; his release might have also saved his life. In 1997, Maldonado was diagnosed with chronic hepatitis C—a disease, now curable, […]
It’s time to give prisoners a big raise
By David C. Fathi September 3 David C. Fathi is the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project. Prisoners across the United States began a strike Aug. 21 that is scheduled to last until next Sunday. The strike’s organizers are encouraging their fellow prisoners to refuse to work and to engage in other forms of […]
Update on Prison Strike Demanding End of “Slave Labor”: After 10 Days, Protests Spread to 11 States
Prisoners across the country join work stoppages, hunger strikes and commissary boycotts in at least 11 states to protest prison conditions and demand the end of what they call “prison slavery.” Organizers report prisoners in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Indiana are demonstrating. Individuals in Texas, California and Ohio have gone on hunger strike, including […]
Tempering The Cost Of Aging, Dying In Prison With The Demands Of Justice
Photo: Meredity Nierman / WGBH A Massachusetts state prison is expanding the graveyard where it buries inmates who die in custody, one consequence of the state’s huge increase in aging prisoners. And as more inmates age and die behind bars, the cost of their care is skyrocketing, fueling new efforts to release prisoners who are too […]
FDC withdraws proposed rule to cut prison visitation hours
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (CNS) — Prison reform groups are celebrating a victory after a proposed rule to cut visitation hours in Florida prisons was withdrawn after extensive public outcry. The Florida Department of Corrections had been trying to cut prison visitation hours since February. The department was met with outrage from families of those behind bars. “I […]
Despite Privatization, Prison Health Costs Continue To Rise
As a candidate, Gov. Rick Scott pitched the idea of having private companies provide health care to the state’s prisoners in a plan to save taxpayers $1 billion over seven years. But in the first five years of privatization, the cost has climbed from $278 million to $375 million. Privatization isn’t the only cause for […]
Florida inmates’ families will have to pay for video “visits”
TALLAHASSEE — Faced with in-person visitations slashed in half and an offer to pay for the privilege, a coalition of inmate families and reformers announced Thursday they will fight the Florida Department of Corrections where hurts: in the pocketbook. The Campaign for Prison Reform said it will boycott a new FDC program that will allow […]
Florida prisons see visitation upheaval as corrections officials cite contraband crisis
After a ramp up of enforcement that led to thousands of prisoner visitor strip searches beginning last summer, the Florida Department of Corrections will cut visitation days in half, saying it can’t safely facilitate the process. Since July, Florida corrections officials have implemented a contraband crackdown that has weighed heavily on inmates’ girlfriends, wives and […]
Arizona death row inmates die from hepatitis C, not lethal injection
PHOENIX — Since executions were put on hold by a federal judge in 2014, five Arizona death-row inmates have died of “natural causes.” All of them were related to hepatitis C infections, according to attorneys and relatives of the dead prisoners. The medical director at the Arizona prison complex that until last year housed the majority of death […]
Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2018
By Peter Wagner and Wendy Sawyer March 14, 2018 Press release Can it really be true that most people in jail are being held before trial? And how much of mass incarceration is a result of the war on drugs? These questions are harder to answer than you might think, because our country’s systems of confinement are so […]
Prisoner Rights Advocates Rally Against Visitation Cutbacks In Florida Prisons
They arrived in street-parked caravans carrying stark white banners and neon signs with slogans like, “Invest in people, not in prisons.” Several of them donned black-and-white striped prisoners costumes as they gathered to the screech of the megaphone and the beat of a snare drum. Around 50 protesters were barred from the building by police tape. […]
More Prison Inmates Get Access to Hepatitis-C Drugs
Massachusetts state prison officials agreed to expand treatment for inmates with hepatitis C, in the first settlement among several class-action lawsuits accusing state prison systems of denying many prisoners access to costly drugs. Drugmakers including Gilead Sciences Inc., AbbVie Inc. and Merck & Co. since 2013 have . . . Read the full article.
Visitation cut at Florida state prisons. Agency cites staff shortages, safety concerns
Citing severe staff shortages and safety concerns, Florida has taken the drastic step of curtailing visitation at all 50 state prisons. The smuggling of cellphones, weapons and drugs continues unabated throughout the state, leading to turmoil that has threatened the safety of corrections officers, staff and inmates, officials said. But one state lawmaker said the […]
Florida is afraid of its prison system. Here’s what lawmakers want to do about it.
Lobbyist Barney Bishop stood up before a Senate committee Wednesday and wrote the direct mail campaign ad every legislator fears. “You’re helping drug traffickers,” he said of the bill before the Senate Justice Appropriations Subcommittee that will give judges discretion when sentencing non-violent drug offenders to prison. “Do you know how much pot you’ve got […]
Inmates denied costly hepatitis C cure, suit says
California prison inmates with hepatitis C are being denied curative treatment that relies on expensive new drugs, according to a class action lawsuit filed this week in federal court in Sacramento. The lawsuit was filed Tuesday by Sacramento attorneys Mark E. Merin and Fred J. Hiestand. The 18 prisoners named as plaintiffs all have hepatitis […]
Saturday’s Editorial: Too many mentally ill inmates in Florida prisons are being mistreated
If Danny Geiger were still alive, his mother believes he would be pleased with a settlement agreement filed this week by the state to improve mental health care within its prison system. But Geiger, a mentally ill man who hailed from Orange Park, died in 2016 after being abused by the prison system that had […]