Commentary: Stop incarcerating people with Alzheimer’s
Last week, a Spanish-speaking man in his late 70s wandered into my open bay prison dorm. We have 86 bunks. He meandered to the back, passing row upon row of steel frames, shuffling a metal walker down an aisle, looking for what he assumed was his assigned bunk.
Upon reaching a bed in a far corner of the dorm, he raised his head and found another man in his bed. He made eye contact. A deep sense of dread, anger and confusion settled.
Fortunately, a large number of people in prison speak Spanish. Neighbors swept in to diffuse the situation. The group, sensing our visitor’s mental state, discovered that he was lost. The man was actually housed across the compound and wandered into our dorm — totally unaware of his error. It was also revealed: he did not speak English, was new to prison, and had some kind of neurocognitive disorder such as late-stage dementia.
Florida has a problem.
Discover more from Florida Action Committee (FAC)
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
They need every PFR to stay on the registry for life, preferably in a prison to get more votes, FTR are great to improve crime statistics and fill prisons. Don’t forget the funding at local and federal levels needed to fight this overwhelming PFR crime epidemic. As of 2024 there’s about 86k PFRs on the Florida registry. Every year FDLE gets more and more money to deal with this growing “threat” (especially the “repeat offenders”). Notice how no matter how much money they get the registry never goes down?
People won’t wake up until they or a loved one lands on the registry. I read somewhere that monthly something like 7k-10k citizens are put on the registry nationally, monthly. That’s every month… every single month. Eventually this whole BS apparatus will collapse on itself.
The United States locks up more mentally disabled/more mentally ill individuals in prison than any other country in the world.
I have a diagnosed cognitive condition which the US sent me over to war and I got blown up 3 times with a Traumatic brain injury. Proven memory loss, takes me while remembering what I ate for breakfast. My fiancé helps me but again got FTR because of Laws and how they do not have things for diagnoses impairments like these and how the registration is a Bible. Also I didnt FTR maliciously it was a small technical. Sad its a felony.
There’s other alternatives to institute the mentally ill besides prison. So sad and disgusting.