Broward sheriff fires back over inmate-program suits

Closure ‘in the best interest’ of safety, he said

Inmates are suing Department of Corrections Secretary Julie Jones, who blames the Broward Sheriff’s Office, while Sheriff Scott Israel says he’s “really disgusted.”

That’s the tangled web that arose Tuesday as Broward Bridge inmates sued to stop the Department of Corrections from shutting down the prisoner re-entry program in Pompano Beach.

Jones called the Sheriff ’s Office’s decision in February to stop transferring prisoners for the Department of Corrections a danger to public safety.

“This action, or rather inaction, has resulted in a serious public safety issue which further motivates the Department to resolve the issues surrounding the current location of our probation offices,” Jones said in a statement Monday. Israel fired back Tuesday. “I make every decision in the best interest of public safety,” Israel said. “I’m really disgusted by her comment that we are not doing things in the interest of public safety.”

Israel argues that, quite the opposite, it was deputies spending so much time on prisoner transfers that was the real public safety issue.

“I cannot continue year after year, month after month, day after day to strip the city of Lauderdale Lakes by having them transport for DOC. That’s abundantly unfair and unsafe for that city,” Israel said.

The lawsuits, from three inmates at the Broward Bridge program, maintain that the Department of Corrections cannot unilaterally shut down the facility.

The prisoners argue that the state budget requires any prison changes be approved by leaders of the Florida Legislature and the Governor’s Office of Policy and Budget.

The prisoners — Douglas Rahn, John McDougle, and Michael Brammer — are seeking a temporary injunction by the end of the week, so that they can continue taking substance abuse classes at the facility and participating in a work-release program. Otherwise, the program will be shut down so the Department of Corrections can use the facility to temporarily house probation violators, and prisoners in the Broward Bridge program will be transferred to work camps or other transitional facilities.

Broward Bridge has a recidivism rate of just 10 percent for men who complete the program, five percent for women. Almost 90 percent of inmates who go into the prisoner re-entry program complete it.

There used to be seven temporary holding facilities in Broward County to house violators until Broward Sheriff’s deputies came to take them to the main jail in Fort Lauderdale. But those were all consolidated in one facility in Lauderdale Lakes last year.

The city of Lauderdale Lakes contracts with the Broward Sheriff ’s Office for five deputies per shift. The deputies stopped doing prisoner transfers in February, so they could spend more time patrolling.

“It’s almost three hours for each pick up that they do. They have to go to the office, secure the prisoner, do the paperwork, transfer the prisoner to the main jail in Fort Lauderdale, and then go through all of the procedures there,” said Terrence Lynch, an attorney in the sheriff’s General Counsel office. “Last year, there were about 500 transports. That’s well over 1,000 hours of deputy time where they’re not patrolling.”

The Sheriff’s Office offered to give transport vans to the corrections department or to provide a security detail for prisoner transport, Israel said, but the Department of Corrections turned him down.

Sheriff’s deputies, not corrections officers, are trained to do transports, according to the Department of Corrections.

“They transport prisoners between facilities all the time. They are probably the most experienced agency in the state to do transport, and to say they can’t provide training ... it suggests that it’s something they’re just not going to do,” Lynch said.

As for the three prisoners who are suing to keep Broward Bridge open, if they win in court, they can keep getting training at the jobs they got through the program — with We Will Transport It, a locally owned and operated transport company.