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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
In prison shower-death inquiry, human-rights groups urge U.S. to intervene
LAKE CITY — Mark Joiner was roused from his cell earlier than usual on June 24, 2012. He was handed a bottle of Clorox and was told it was clean-up time. Joiner was used to cleaning up cells in Dade Correctional Institution’s psychiatric ward, and many of them were frequently brimming with feces and urine, […]
Under fire, Florida prisons changing policy on death investigations
The Department of Corrections is proposing that all unattended inmate deaths and incidents involving serious injury of inmates be chiefly handled by the state Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The proposal, which must be finalized with FDLE, is among several changes announced by prisons chief Michael Crews in the wake of a series of stories […]
Prison death is one of several raising questions
Six years ago on June 25, Donna Fitzgerald, a 50-year-old corrections officer at Daytona Beach’s Tomoka Correctional Institution, was stabbed more than a dozen times with a piece of sheet metal. She was found dead, slumped over a pushcart, her blood spilled on the concrete floor of a prison paint room. A subsequent investigation by […]
2 years later, Florida keeps lid on prison death details
A killing, then threats and a coverup. That’s what three former inmates at Dade Correctional Institution independently claim happened on and after June 23, 2012, when Darren Rainey, a 50-year-old, mentally-ill prisoner, was allegedly locked in a shower by corrections officers as punishment. He was left there for as long as two hours, purportedly howling for mercy as scalding water blasted his body.
NACDL Releases Major Report on Collateral Consequences of Conviction
The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) has released a major new report — Collateral Damage: America’s Failure to Forgive or Forget in the War on Crime – A Roadmap to Restore Rights and Status After Arrest or Conviction. With more than 65 million people in America having some form of a criminal record, […]
Seven Republican Governors Won’t Comply With Anti-Rape Rules
WASHINGTON — Republican governors in seven states — Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Nebraska, Texas and Utah — are either ignoring or refusing to comply with national standards meant to prevent sexual assault in prisons, according to new information from the Justice Department. The Justice Department gave the governors of all 50 states until May 15 […]
Davie woman with banished service dog gets $300,000 condo settlement
Calling the behavior of a Davie condominium association “absurd” and “unreasonable,” a federal judge has ordered a Davie condominium to allow a disabled resident to keep her service dog. The two-year dispute will carry a hefty price tag for the Sabal Palm Condominiums: $300,000. Deborah Fischer, a retired Bro-ward art teacher who was diagnosed with […]