CJ's Observations on Florida Prisons

From: CJ

To: kaylee1@charter.net

Sent: Friday, November 19, 2004 2:14 AM

Subject: Problems with your website

After reviewing your website for several weeks, I've finally decided to write you to tell you what I agree and disagree on. Granted, a lot of this stuff is old, before I was employed there and even pre-Crosby, but there are several things I'd like to make mention of.

First, one of the most prevailing complaints I hear from people is how it's *unfair* for the Department to take 40% of what is sent to an inmate. Why is that unfair? I'm not certain where the money goes, whether it goes to the Department, whether it goes to a General Expenditure Fund or whether it's used at the specific prison the inmate is at, but it seems perfectly fair to me. I'm paying $50 for that person to be in prison. I have to pay his meals, pay his medical care, if he wants to get his GED I have to pay for that. So why is it unfair for parents, friends, family, strangers to get taxed when sending money to an inmate? You at least know the person. Maybe it's a brother, sister, father, cousin, nephew, so you're giving money of your own free will for him or her to go the canteen and get a pack of smokes or a bag of chips. I'm giving money because I have no choice in the matter.

Second, I've seen a lot of references on this site made to "gaurds" and "CO's." I'll be the first to admit that perhaps, at times, staff has participated in questionable activities. Let me preface this, before continuing, by saying that I don't work in any of our institutions so I don't know exactly what happens. As I was saying, while there may be some things that may anger some, I think it's fair to qualify it by saying many of our staff are not violence hungry people. For example, several weeks ago a Sgt., I believe, contacted us to let us know about force that had to be used on the inmate. The reason force had to be used was because she was court ordered to take specific medications and was refusing to do so. This inmate, who knew when staff would be by to give her her meds, would rub feces on her cell wall, on her self and start to act out violently. Staff would then have to get into biohazard suits and fight with this inmate just to get her to take her medication. This Sgt. who called me told me her staff HATED dealing with this inmate because they hated having to use force. As I said, I don't work in our institutions so I don't know what goes on, but I've spoken to many staff members who have expressed an utter contempt and hatred for having to resort to force on an inmate.

Third, some of what you say makes it sound like staff can get away with anything. At many of our institutions, a great deal of what goes on is videotaped. Now, you may say "Well if you have gaurd in the control room monitoring everything s/he will simply turn a blind eye." That may be the case, I don't know, but a lot is videotaped, including most Use of Force incidents (if not spontaneous, and, if it is, the post-use of force physical is videotaped) and many areas of the compound. Don't make it sound like a lot of our staff are out to "get" the inmates.

Fourth, on a personal note, I have a tremendous amount of respect for Jimmy Crosby and his staff. I've spoken with Mr. Crosby personally, as well as Mr. Denman, Mrs. Hayes, our Asst. Sec. of Institutions, Mr. Sapp, our Dir. of Institutions and Sterling Ivey, our Director of Public Affairs. These individuals, in my opinion, are consumate professionals. They handle themselves with dignity and, in spite of how they could act to lower level staff, always treat us with courtesy and fairness. Now, I've never personally worked with any of these people nor have I heard any of the things that you seem to have heard, save for the Valdes case at FSP, so perhaps my opinion is biased because of that.

Or maybe it's because I like my job. I don't know, but I read somewhere on your website where one of our staff said "what about affording the CO the luxury of innocent until proven guilty?" Touche. Some of the stuff on this website seems pretty unbelievable, that it could have happened and not a single soul stepped forward to say anything.

Look, your website does some good. The Department was in a PR nightmare in 2004 with all the things that happened. I think the last thing that anybody on our side wants is for another scandal or another anything to break out and further tarnish what faith may remain in us.

I don't advocate for the termination of a staff member who speaks out against corruption. I don't support summarily torturing and punishing an inmate for filing a grievance which is found to have merit. However, I don't think it's wise to take a murderer or a rapist or a child pornographer at his word when he says "they feed us rotten food." Maybe the food's not great, but Christ, it's prison, not the Plaza.

At any rate, good luck with what you're trying to accomplish here. I look forward to keeping up with your site to see what new allegations have been revealed.

Respectfully Yours,

Good to meet you, CJ. You're obviously a thinking young man or woman with very interesting observations. I have heard them all before but feel they are worth addressing,

The issue you bring up, about the prisoner and his family paying for his incarceration? I do realize it's all about money, but to claim the prisoners (who mostly get their money from struggling families who still love them) owe that debt is wrong. That is shuffing off the cost of society's choices on a relative handful of people in the society (the families) who by this time do not agree with the whole system and can ill afford to pay for it. It is OUR cost, all of society, for what we perceive to be PUBLIC SAFETY.

And it should fall to all the citizens to pay for their prisons. The citizens and their elected representatives make decisions on how they want to handle any issue. Tax money is provided to pay for their choices. If this country chooses to illogically incarcerate 3 million citizens at one time by using unconstitutional laws, then by God they should be willing to pay for their choice. To claim it is not the debt of the citizens is to encourage all of us to refuse to accept responsibility for how we choose to deal with these problems.

No, we don't have to incarcerate this many people. We have a drug war that has been perpetuated for well over half a century with absolutely no signs of victory. We have mentally ill who would do better in hospitals and people who would do better in anger management or treatment centers or out getting an education who are using up prison beds. We also have a lot of innocent people in our broken system. We have chosen to use incarceration as our first option rather than as a last resort. We (the citizens) owe the bill for that choice.

And to top it all off, we refuse to rehabilitate our prisoners. Every prison worker I ask about rehabilitation says, "It's not my job". We have cut nearly every semblance of rehabilitation as proven by the recidivism rates and still can't afford to foot our own bills. So no matter how you look at it, these are the bills society has chosen to create, it's the way we've chosen to approach our problems and now, like irresponsible children, we want to shoulder the cost on to those who least can afford it.

I see nothing moral or right about any corporation or business making such an unusual and extraordinary profit off a select group of people that they can afford to share it with the state that provides the 'captive consumers'. That's what MCI and Keefe does - they share their bounty with the state for providing all those helpless families who pay the bills. I know if you see any other business charging way too much to, say, only minorities or only women or only bald-headed men, you'd agree it's bad business ethics. It could be grounds for legal action. MCI and the state share the blame for driving families to welfare and then we complain that they are on public money. Certainly a tight, stingy way of looking at our fellow man. I don't see where this practice is wise or fair.

This state is housing over 80,000 human beings, crowded into unventilated cells, hot in the summer cold in the winter. The state is feeding them diets that normal people subsist and stay healthy on, substandard diets that over time lower the immune system. Then the state complains that they have to provide medical care when the diseases begin to spread. According to researches about 65% of the American prison population have Hepatitis. Other diseases running rampant such as MSRA, HIV and TB are growing into a major problem.

No, I just can't agree that the families of prisoners are the ones to support our current massive prison system.

Kay Lee

Monday, January 31, 2005 2:51 AM

Howdy Kay Lee-

Stumbled across something at work tonight I thought was interesting. Might not be too terribly tantalizing, as it's something that's up there on the public website and the FIA isn't needed, but your readers may enjoy it.

I've heard in Florida quite a bit, but in other states more often the plight of African-Americans in our penal system. "Blacks get the shaft," "Blacks have it worse," etc, etc, etc. I've also heard people complaining that youths in Florida are being singled out and treated more harshly then many others. All valid points, but easily refuted. If people thinks juvy's are being treated worse on the state level (not county or city incarcerations) I invite them to visit http://www.dc.state.fl.us/pub/statsbrief/index.html. This will show people that the number of youths being dealt with by FDC is steadily decreasing.

For those who believe African-Americans are getting the short end of the stick, I invite them to visit http://www.dc.state.fl.us/pub/statsbrief/admissions.html and http://www.dc.state.fl.us/pub/statsbrief/deathrow.html. The first shows a breakdown of the number of newly admitted inmates. An obvious observation is that blacks and white are being admitted at an almost identical rate. The second shows Death Row inmates, which shows whites outnumber blacks by almost 2:1.

So, next time someone pop's off at the mouth without thinking, refer them to those websites so they can see that they're reciting a tired argument which can irrefutably be proven to be incorrect.

Thanks,
CJ