Prison Reform: A Course Correction

Cynthia Barnett | 5/1/2009

McNeil wants a transitional facility in each of the DOC’s four districts. He has told lawmakers he will hold back on plans for new prisons while the department continues to gather data on its community re-entry programs.

[Photo: Jeffrey Camp]

But some advocates for prison reform say it’s moving too slowly — acknowledging that McNeil has an uphill battle in changing Florida’s correctional culture, which has deep roots in Starke and other parts of rural Florida that have grown to rely on prisons as an industry. Allison DeFoor is a longtime GOP political operative and former Monroe County sheriff who became convinced of the power of reform after becoming an Episcopal priest and ministering to Wakulla inmates. The DOC’s value system, he says, “wants more prisoners, no scrutiny and no accountability.”

Former DOC Secretary Jim McDonough, who also tried to push reform and is still trying, says the cultural issues are “bigger than the DOC — much bigger.” Change requires buy-in from the judiciary system, which has expanded drug courts and mental-health courts, but most of all needs backing from lawmakers and the citizens who elect them.

Closing the Revolving Door Inmates who had a GED at release are 7.9% less likely to return to prison than inmates overall. Inmates who had a vocational certificate at release were less 14% likely to return. Inmates who had both a GED and a vocational certificate at release were less likely 18.3% to return. Inmates who completed a substance abuse program were 56% less likely to return than felony offenders with substance abuse problems who did not receive treatment.

That’s not an easy sell these days. Florida Department Law Enforcement data show crime rates are at a 30-year low. Is it because the state has incarcerated more people or because of a period of relative economic prosperity? Anecdotally, police say they’ve seen an uptick in crime since Florida’s economic decline. At the same time, the public’s sympathies may lie more with jobless Floridians without criminal records than with former inmates seeking to re-enter society. McNeil, the former chief of police in Tallahassee, says he doesn’t dismiss those points of view. He also wants to make sure victims have a strong voice in re-entry policies and procedures. The issue is more complex, he says, than either side makes it out to be. “There’s no question that 20% or more of the inmates who come to us need to stay locked up for the rest of their lives because they are a danger to society,” he says. “But the truth is that 80% of them are coming back into communities — and they are committing crimes again and again.”

Leaders at the Florida Chamber of Commerce and Associated Industries respond that the idea is not to focus only on today, but to put in place policies that will allow Florida to prosper in the future. They imagine a future of lower spending on prisons; a single-digit recidivism rate; and job-training for inmates targeted at the needs of Florida businesses in 2020, 2030 and beyond.

“In the heyday, if we had $100 million, it was easier to build a new prison than it was to work on this problem,” says Tony Carvajal, executive vice president of the Florida Chamber Foundation, the research arm of the Chamber of Commerce. “We don’t have that option anymore. But at the end of this, we don’t just want to balance the budget. We want to build a better state.”

Allison DeFoor, a former sheriff of Monroe County, is now an Episcopal priest who ministers to inmates at the Wakulla Correctional Institution. Since Wakulla became faith-based in 2006, fewer than 10% of inmates released from the facility have returned to prison. [Photo: Jeffrey Camp]

Tags: Politics & Law, Education, Government/Politics & Law