Common-sense prison reforms are needed to fix Department of Corrections
On Jan. 17, Rep. Kimberly Daniels filed HB 211, and on Jan. 30 Sen. Darryl Rouson filed SB 440, both related to amending Florida’s two-strikes law, the prison releasee reoffender (PRR) act. Every year, we see the Florida Department of Corrections stand before the Legislature asking for more money, describing critical understaffing conditions that make the environment unsafe for staff and residents alike, with the assurance that money will fix what ails the system. Yet every year, nothing significantly changes.
The Florida Department of Corrections has been in “crisis” for the last 50 years, starting when overcrowding was truly an issue in the early 1970s, to the mid-1980s when the Legislature passed a slew of gain time statutes which would release individuals early so as not to violate the Costello ruling, to the 1990s when they passed mandatory minimums like the PRR, increased the points value requiring prison sentences, established the 85% gain time cap, and received VOI/TIS funds from the federal government under the 1994 Crime Bill, all ultimately increasing the number of individuals sent to prison, and lengthening the amount of time they would spend.
According to FDC Deputy Secretary Richard Comerford, there are currently 5,000 vacancies in the DOC agency-wide, and they are again asking for more money this year to increase pay for not only officers, but positions such as maintenance. Solutions to the overcrowding in Costello included increasing capacity or lowering the population. Between 1980 and 2000, Florida built 59 correctional facilities including 28 major institutions and 22 work camps. In January of 2022, Secretary Dixon indicated that due to staff shortages the state had to close 203 dorms, 28 work camps, five community release centers, and two prisons. And yet, the staffing issues persist, indicating that increasing capacity was not the answer and, thus far, neither is money.
The solution that keeps getting overlooked is lowering the prison population, even though there is a plethora of scholarship that recommends this. Florida DOC has an aging population problem (approximately 30% of the overall population, with 60% having had zero or one prior prison commitments), which is more costly, and due to a decrease in funding for programs, an idleness problem which, in conjunction with the staffing crisis, often leads to increased violence.
Amending Florida’s PRR law would be a step in the right direction. Although this law is wholly unnecessary and was passed for purely political reasons, amending the sentencing structure to align sentence lengths more proportionately with the usual guidelines, and giving discretion back to the courts where it belongs, would be an acceptable first step. According to the bill analysis done for SB 210 in 2021, the PRR bill filed by then-Sen. Jeff Brandes, there would be 4,510 PRR individuals with fiveand 15-year sentences who would potentially be eligible for release within the first year or so after law passage (these would be individuals with second and third-degree felonies). These individuals would be monitored upon release which would not compromise public safety, and which would save the state approximately $117,219,410 per year (accounting for the difference between inmate cost per day of $76.83 and cost of community supervision per day of $5.62).
Every year for at least the past 5 years, the Florida DOC has released, on average, 28,000 individuals from prison, approximately 33% of whose offenses were considered violent. Of those released, consistently approximately 60% of those were due to expired sentences, meaning they were not released on any kind of supervision. And yet, the crime rate in Florida continues to decline, with a success rate of approximately 75% not returning to prison within 3 years.
It is time for Florida to start passing common-sense reforms, including amending PRR. Bills have been filed in the last several years to broaden compassionate release, release of the elderly/infirm, reduce gain time for first-time, nonviolent offenders to 65%, second look for those who were 25 and under at the time of their offense, revise the felony murder rule (a rule which sentences people for a murder they did not commit), and none of these have passed. It is a well-known, collectively accepted opinion that longer sentences do not decrease crime/make the public safer because people simply age out of crime. It is time for Florida to end their reliance on capacity, early release valves, and money, things that have been unsuccessful in fixing what ails the Florida DOC.