Fix Florida’s overcrowded and underfunded prison system

Florida Department of Corrections Secretary Mark Inch has vowed to fix the state’s badly broken and severely overcrowded prison system, but he needs the backing of the Florida Legislature to help fund his ambitious plans and to write new laws to reduce the prison population.

He wants the Legislature to boost the $2.7 billion annual budget by $98.6 million. His improvements will raise pay for correctional officers, reduce 12-hour shifts and repair and maintain state facilities to the nation’s third-largest prison system.

The problems Inch faces are real. More than 67% of correctional officers have less than two years’ experience, many of whom are just out of high school. The turnover rate is 150 percent. Violence is vast and widespread — inmate on inmate assaults and inmate on staff assaults are up 67% and 46%, respectively. Force by officers is also up 54% . Inmate gang population has increased 140% and possession of contraband by a whopping 484%. (Officers being the source for the contraband is yet another problem the DOC reluctantly admits must also be addressed.)

As needed as Inch’s recommendations are, will his recommendations alone stop the high rate of abuse, cut the flow of contraband or reduce the revolving door of corrections officers?

Shifting the perspective slightly to include improvements, not only for officers but also for inmates, could prove to be more effective. I speak from experience — I spend a lot of time in prison. I run Exchange for Change, a nonprofit that teaches writing in South Florida’s state and federal correctional institutions.

In our classes, students turn have turned what used to be empty time into an opportunity to feed their minds. What started out as an idea in a classroom of 17 has grown into a movement — over the last five years Exchange for Change has reached more than 1000 incarcerated individuals, many who have accumulated hundreds of hours of classes. Our growth is due to word of mouth from students who see the value of using their time to learn.

Unfortunately, they are just a fraction of the Florida prison population. Providing more incarcerated people opportunities outside of their un-air-conditioned dormitories will decrease some of the working conditions that correctional officers find so challenging. It does not take a lot of imagination to picture what kind of steamy tension rises in a dorm where dozens of men sleep side-by-side in Florida’s brutal summer heat.

Educational programs could also provide skills that mean the difference between returning to prison and becoming gainfully employed once released. Statistics show inmates who take educational courses have a 43% better chance of staying out of prison and also improve their chance of finding work.

Yet less than 5% of Florida’s correctional budget is spent on education. Spread that out between 145 facilities and 95,000 inmates and, well, for one correctional institution in South Florida, that meant only $500 was allocated for 1500 inmates last year. Most correctional institutions offer nothing more than the state-mandated GED classes.

There are other things the state legislature can do in addition to Inch’s proposal. It can lower the sentencing guidelines. Florida has some of the toughest in the nation. Do away with mandatory minimum sentencing. Address the increasing aging population; it has risen nearly 10 percent since 2014. Health care for the elderly — men and women over 50 years old — cost the state between four and eight times more than the under 50 population.

Revisit the 1983 law that eliminated the possibility of parole. That year, the DOC released nearly 4000 people on parole. By 2013, just 27 people were released, less than 1% of those eligible. Meanwhile that same year more than 35,000 people were released because their sentences ended. Were all of those men and women less of a risk to society than the men and women whose parole was, some would argue, arbitrarily denied?

Legislators should give Inch every dollar requested, but should also increase, and promote, educational opportunities. That’s a win-win equation for everyone.

Kathie Klarreich is executive director of the “Exchange for Change.” It’s a nonprofit prison-writing program that offers dozens of writing classes of all genres to incarcerated men and juveniles in state and federal institutions.