If your doctor charged a $500 co-pay for every visit, how bad would your health have to get before you made an appointment? You would be right to think such a high cost exploitative, and your neighbors would be right to fear that it would discourage you from getting the care you need for preventable […]
Corrections agency scraps prison contract
TALLAHASSEE Citing shortcomings in mental-health services at a South Florida prison, state corrections officials are terminating a contract with a private healthcare provider months before the deal was set to expire. Department of Corrections Secretary Julie Jones on Wednesday canceled the contract with Wexford Health Sources, giving the Pittsburgh-based company a required 180-day notice of […]
Florida’s largest privately-operated women’s prison is in danger zone. Lawmaker wants Gov. Scott to act
BY MARY ELLEN KLAS TALLAHASSEE Warning that inmate health and safety is at risk at the state’s largest privately run women’s prison, Rep. David Richardson on Thursday asked Gov. Rick Scott to use his emergency powers to replace the top officers and take state control of Gadsden Correctional Facility. In a letter delivered late Thursday, […]
Lawsuit Filed to Restore Former Felons’ Voting Rights in Florida
On Monday, March 13 the Fair Elections Legal Network and Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC filed a class action lawsuit that seeks to automatically restore former felons’ voting rights and eliminate Florida’s arbitrary process for re-enfranchisement. The plaintiffs include seven former felons who have applied for restoration of voting rights and have been denied […]
Dubious Data Belies Supreme Court’s Stance on Repeat Sex Offenders
Last week at the Supreme Court, a lawyer made what seemed like an unremarkable point about registered sex offenders. “This court has recognized that they have a high rate of recidivism and are very likely to do this again,” said the lawyer, Robert C. Montgomery, who was defending a North Carolina statute that bars sex […]
‘Horrific’ conditions at Florida prison languish until legislator shows up and asks why
TALLAHASSEE When the inmates at Columbia Correctional Institution started shouting at him during one of his surprise prison inspections, Rep. David Richardson knew something was amiss. “I’ve done this long enough to know adult males never want to talk to an outsider in a group setting,” said the Miami Beach Democrat. The fear of retaliation […]
Inside Lewisburg Prison: A Choice Between A Violent Cellmate Or Shackles
On Feb. 3, 2011, corrections officers at the Lewisburg federal penitentiary in central Pennsylvania arrived outside Sebastian Richardson’s cell door. With them was a man looking agitated, rocking back and forth and staring down at Richardson, who at 4 feet, 11 inches was nicknamed “Bam Bam.” The man, officers told Richardson, was his new cellmate. […]
Why Prisoners Across the Country Have Gone on Strike
Following a call for a nationwide prison strike that began September 9, inmates in at least three states have organized work stoppages or staged protests in support of improving their wages and working conditions. Here’s the latest on the strike and the issues behind it: How many prisoners are on strike? The strike’s organizers had […]
As Florida inmate begged for help, guards gassed him to death, suit says
A 27-year-old prisoner who died at Franklin Correctional Institution in 2010 was killed by corrections officers who tortured, gassed and beat him, according to a 33-page federal civil rights lawsuit filed Monday. The inmate, Randall Jordan-Aparo, suffered from a genetic blood disorder that had flared up in the months before his death. As his condition […]
Florida should follow U.S. lead, shed private prisons
By Paula Dockery The U.S. Department of Justice announced it was ending its use of private prisons. The agency’s Office of Inspector General released a critical report that found the private-run prisons do not provide the same level of service, do not save on costs and do not maintain the same level of safety and […]
My Life as a Blind Inmate
By Burl Washington as told to Christie Thompson. This article was published in collaboration with Vice. I wasn’t blind when I entered federal prison. In fact, at the time of my arrest on April 19, 2006, I was driving my car. But I have glaucoma, and my eyesight began to fade once I was inside. […]
Guards Offer Snack Bounty To Beat Up 13-Year-Old Boy In Detention
A juvenile detention center in Fort Lauderdale is under fire for offering food as a reward for beating up a teenager in its custody. A 13-year-old identified as A.R. was hospitalized for three weeks after staff at the Broward Juvenile Detention Center offered a “snack bounty” in exchange for beating him up. After A.R. was […]
Florida prisons a ‘time bomb,’ union delegate tells lawmakers
BY JULIE K. BROWN Calling Florida prisons “a ticking time bomb,” members of the union representing state corrections officers called on Gov. Rick Scott and lawmakers on Wednesday to convene an emergency legislative session to address the state’s prison crisis. One recent riot, several inmate uprisings, and widespread attacks on officers and inmates have alarmed […]
Prisoner: Save money, release older inmates
By Roy A. Burges, Guest Editorial I live in Union Correctional Institution, the oldest prison in Florida with 1,043 inmates older than 50. Most, like me, have been incarcerated for decades and have no hope of getting out soon. But when I read the Orlando Sentinel editorial “Clemency for silver-haired cons is a golden cost […]
Why It’s Nearly Impossible for Prisoners to Sue Prisons
June 21, 2007, two guards at a jail in Baltimore assaulted an inmate named Shaidon Blake, a gang leader who had been convicted of second-degree murder, earlier that year. The guards, James Madigan and Michael Ross, had been ordered to move Blake to solitary after a supervising officer complained that he was starting trouble—“commandeering” the […]
Madness
Shortly after Harriet Krzykowski began working at the Dade Correctional Institution, in Florida, an inmate whispered to her, “You know they starve us, right?” It was the fall of 2010, and Krzykowski, a psychiatric technician, had been hired by Dade, which is forty miles south of Miami, to help prisoners with clinical behavioral problems follow […]
Agency comes under fire for no-bid prison healthcare contract
The Florida Department of Corrections’ attempt to restore normalcy to its troubled prison healthcare system is now tangled in a legal dispute over the agency’s decision to award up to $31 million in fees to a politically well-connected company as part of a $268 million no-bid contract. The contract between the prison agency and Centurion […]
Prison health contract under scrutiny
Department of Corrections Secretary Julie Jones is under fire for signing a $268 million, no-bid contract for prison health services after one of the state’s two vendors walked away from a five-year, $1.2 billion deal three years early. Jones signed the new contract with Centurion of Florida LLC in January, a little more than a […]