Florida’s Longest-Serving Inmates: They Get Older, Sicker and More Well-behaved
Florida requires that inmates serve at least 85% of their sentences, and the state has abolished parole. That’s resulted in a massive prison population — about 95,000 inmates. Taxpayers now fork over $2.7 billion per year for the Department of Corrections budget — and that’s after expenses have been trimmed. Education programs are almost nonexistent. Only 18 of 50 major facilities have air conditioning. There’s a chronic shortage of guards, whose starting trainee pay is $30,150. Healthcare costs are up to $375M, with an additional $120 million proposed for next year.
Does it do any good for society to keep criminals locked up for decades, mostly to languish? What would the alternative be?
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Very well-written article taken from the original and credited [almost verbatim]: https://jaxlookout.com/floridas-longest-serving-inmates-they-get-older-sicker-and-more-well-behaved/
Any human being reading this would have some compassion for these poor souls. But with few exceptions, the Floriduh Legislators are a bunch of self-serving hatemongers who spew their vitriol about being tough on crime while building their collective egos and squandering billions of taxpayer dollars in a revenge culture, non-rehabilitative prison industrial complex.
Nothing will change unless enough good people get elected to draft and pass meaningful prison reforms. Sadly, there are very few good people with the resources to do so.
Make more laws catch more criminals! Seen that In an attorneys office the other day.
I visited an FDOC facility every weekend for 4 years and saw plenty of elderly inmates who parole would be considered for, and probably granted, if it was available. Why Florida did away with this system is completely illogical and plainly stupid.
Florida’s FDOC budget, if fully implemented with programs needed to reduce recidivism and properly pay its CO’s, would be well north of $4B.
The state gets grants from the Federal Government. Prisons create jobs. More inmates means more funding. Crime is a money maker. If you crime stats are down, you do not get funding as it is ” Not needed “.
Many of the Florida prisons are more than 50 years old and Union correctional has had little upgrades since being opened in 1913.
Also some of the prisons are now run by a private outside company.
Prisoners are not so much a number as they are a paycheck.
“Prison records on the 10 longest-serving inmates show that many were written up for misbehavior frequently early in their incarceration, but then had years without a single writeup. Brodsky said that’s not surprising. She pointed to criminological studies on recidivism that show most people age out of criminal behavior by age 30. “
Sentences are supposed to END. Serve your time and be done. Likewise, lawmakers keep creating new ways to incarcerate more people for longer to keep up with demand for annual departmental budget increases. If the head count isn’t there, the federal money doesn’t come in. Then there’s political favors…