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 The agency, which had a budget of some $2.2 billion last year, has
been under fire for months because of inmate deaths and
“whistleblower” accounts of a violent culture behind the walls.
Former Corrections Department Secretary Michael Crews last week told
the Miami Herald he had tried for years to persuade Republican
Governor Rick Scott that the prison system was so badly run-down and
understaffed that inmates and employees were not safe. Scott forced
him out late last year.
Department Secretary Julie Jones said she has a “100-day plan” of
major policy changes, emphasizing increased training on “use of
force” by correctional officers, improved staffing levels and mental
health services, as well as upgrading worn-out facilities.
She said she has training teams going throughout the state to make
sure all staff members know force is allowed only in self-defense,
to quell disturbances, prevent escapes or stop resistance to lawful
instructions.
She also said her inspector general’s office, with 160
investigators, checks out every inmate complaint or whistleblower
tip about corruption or brutality by staff. But she conceded the
agency had a "perception problem" and inmates and their families
don’t believe it.
She said there were 894 more “use of force” reports in the prison
system last fiscal year, an increase of 14 percent from the prior
year. But she said there were 2,800 "precipitating acts" by inmates
that could have led to justifiable force by guards, an 18 percent
increase, so the policy of reporting every incident had showed
results.
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The state had 19,806 correctional officers in 2009 but only 16,424
last year, while the inmate population has grown from 92,000 to more
than 100,000 over the past seven years, the committee heard.
Low salaries, starting at about $32,000 a year, and rapid turnover
in the ranks has caused many prisons to adopt 12-hour work shifts,
with fatigue and broken equipment contributing to prison dangers,
according to Senate Criminal Justice Committee Chairman Greg Evers,
a Republican.
"It becomes a safety issue to me, when officers get tired, inmates
get unruly," Evers said.
(Editing by David Adams and Eric Walsh)
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