A nonprofit public interest law firm that conducts civil rights litigation and advocacy in the areas of prisoners’ rights, housing discrimination, disability discrimination, and other areas that impact the lives of Florida’s poor and disenfranchised.
In this section you'll find recent developments and news stories that are relevant to our work.
Cautia Spencer was 13 years old when she picked up a checkbook she found alongside the road. At lunchtime, she attempted to buy a slice of pizza from the school cafeteria with one of the blank checks she had discovered. Cautia was placed in the custody of the Department of Juvenile Justice, but after disobeying rules […]
If Florida lawmakers don’t do anything policy wise soon, the state’s prison population could increase. That’s according to a report commissioned by the Florida Senate to promote the need for prison reform. The report is called “Data-Driven Solutions to Improve Florida’s Criminal Justice System.” Len Engel is the Director of Policy and Campaigns with the Crime and Justice Institute. […]
In a landmark ruling with far-reaching implications, U.S. District Judge Mark Walker has found Florida’s scheme for restoring the voting rights of felons unconstitutional. Walker, in a 43-page order issued today, found that Florida “automatically disenfranchises” any individual who has been convicted of a felony and wishes to vote. “Florida strips the right to vote […]
About $5 million separates the Florida House and Senate’s criminal justice budget. But, while there are some differences, there are areas where both chambers agree. The Senate’s budget proposal is just over $4.6 billion. Sen. Jeff Brandes (R-St. Petersburg) chairs the Senate Budget committee that looks at criminal justice issues. He says the budget reflects […]
The family of Darren Rainey, the 50-year-old schizophrenic inmate whose barbaric shower death led to sweeping reforms in the Florida prison system, has settled a civil rights lawsuit against the Florida Department of Corrections, the Miami Herald has learned. The settlement notice, filed in federal court in Miami last week, did not disclose the amount […]
For the first time in Florida history, voters will decide whether to grant the right to vote to an estimated 1.5 million convicted felons. Secretary of State Ken Detzner announced Tuesday that the proposal gained the required 766,000 valid signatures to get on the November ballot. The state elections website showed 799,278 valid signatures. It […]
More inmates died in Florida prisons last year than in any other year on record, leaving the state scrambling to identify causes and find solutions. The tally, 428 inmate deaths in 2017, was released late Friday by the Florida Department of Corrections and showed a 20 percent increase over previous years. The inmates who died […]
When a series of disturbances and insurrections erupted across state prisons nationwide in 2016 on the anniversary of New York’s 1971 Attica prison riots, the Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) danced around acknowledging whether a set of incidents that had occurred in the Sunshine State were related to the nationwide movement. They were. But after Florida […]
In the eight years since its publication, “The New Jim Crow,” a book by Michelle Alexander that explores the phenomenon of mass incarceration, has sold well over a million copies, been compared to the work of W.E.B. Du Bois, been cited in the legal decisions to end stop-and-frisk and sentencing laws, and been quoted passionately on stage at the Academy […]
Lake Butler Work Camp, Fla., Jan. 16 — There is one place in the U.S. where slavery is still constitutionally legal: in prisons. The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, passed in 1864, abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. But prisoners held in this enslavement are organizing resistance. Brave prisoners […]
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) — Protesters gathered at the Florida Department of Corrections headquarters on Calhoun Street in downtown Tallahassee. The protests were held Tuesday in support of prisoners’ rights. WCTV’s Alicia Turner was on the scene. Alicia reported that one person was arrested and a window was broken at the building. Read the full article.
Prisoners in Florida are planning to go on strike on Martin Luther King Jr. Day to protest “prison slavery” and “deplorable conditions within FL prisons.” In a campaign nicknamed “Operation PUSH”, organizers say inmates are expected to protest at the Reception and Medical Center state prison and hospital for men in Lake Butler, Florida. Several rallies in […]
FLORIDA PRISONERS ARE calling for a general strike to start this week — marking the third mass action over the course of a year in protest of inhumane conditions in the state’s detention facilities. Detainees in at least eight prisons have declared their intention to stop all work on Monday — Martin Luther King Jr. Day — to demand an […]
Inmates across eight Florida prisons have announced a protest in the form of a work stoppage dubbed Operation PUSH set to start on Jan. 15, advocates say. “Every institution must prepare to lay down for at least one month or longer: No prisoners will go to their job assignments,” prisoners said in a lengthy statement, compiled from […]
In a corner of her house in Sparta in southwest Missouri, Jymie Jimerson has set up a kind of shrine. It has Native American art representing her Cherokee heritage alongside Willie Nelson albums, books and photos in remembrance of her late husband. On one side is a copy of Willie’s mid-’70s LP, “Red Headed Stranger.” […]
Calling home from prison is cumbersome and expensive. For deaf people behind bars, it’s even tougher, sometimes impossible. The technology provided to deaf people in most US prisons is a teletypewriter, a machine developed in the 1960s that requires users to type their messages. The system is rife with problems. Most deaf households have switched […]
BY HOWARD L. SIMON It is only because of dogged investigative reporting by the Miami Herald that people know of the horrific 2012 death of Florida prison inmate Darren Rainey. Rainey, incarcerated at the Dade Correctional Institution (DCI), was locked by guards in a shower stall for two hours under a torrent of scalding water […]
Thousands of Tennessee inmates suffering from a hepatitis C epidemic in state prisons are one step closer to receiving life-saving medication currently provided to a select few. U.S. District Chief Judge Waverly Crenshaw granted class action status Thursday to a lawsuit filed by two state inmates against the Tennessee Department of Correction. That means that every current or […]