Florida is responsible for housing 85,000 prisoners − a population a bit greater than Daytona Beach's − while the state's correctional institutions and hospitals, like the inmates themselves, are aging.
And the policies that make Florida the far-and-away leader of states with inmates serving life sentences have also become outdated, some advocates argue. But lawmakers at this year's Legislative Session did not address major reforms such implementing access to parole or rescinding the 1990s-era "two-strikes-you're-out" law. And the House and Senate put just $100 million in recurring funds into the state budget to to address a projected $2.2 billion in "critical" needs.
At a rate of $100 million annually, it will take Florida at least 22 years − and almost assuredly more − to fix things that need fixing right now: Electrical systems, plumbing, security systems as well as prison buildings themselves.
And none of that factors in growing capacity needs, as the state is expected to confine between 108,000 and 124,000 individuals in 2042, according to a Florida Department of Corrections master plan completed by KPMG last year. The plan proposed three scenarios involving different combinations of building new prisons and hospitals, and expanding existing ones. Those capital cost estimates range from $6 to $12 billion.
To highlight two or three problems with Florida's prison system is to ignore many more.
Jeff Brandes, a former Republican state lawmaker from St. Petersburg who started a think tank, the Florida Policy Project, likens the prison system to a burning building.
“I always tell people working on prison policy is like being a volunteer firefighter and showing up and every room is on fire. And you’re the only guy there and you’ve got to figure out where to start,” Brandes said. “The simple truth is you don’t start with a hose. You start with a radio because you can’t do it all yourself.”
Karen Stuckey of Orange City, an advocate for inmates, described some of the conditions at DeSoto Correctional Institution: "The windows, they’re so old that you can’t replace them. ... They don’t close or they don’t open. So when it’s cold, they can’t shut the windows. ... So you’ve got cold air coming in. You can’t open it all the way in the summer and you don’t have any air conditioning."
Brandes believes some lawmakers "absolutely, absolutely want to do more," but he said there is a "problem with leadership" in the Legislature.
In 2022, Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed a legislature plan to spend $840 million for a new prison hospital and new prison.
So the Senate authorized the KPMG report and this year authorized bonding $100 million annually for 30 years, a total of $3 billion, for long-term construction and repair of aging prison infrastructure, said Katie Betta, deputy chief of staff for communications for Senate President Kathleen Passidomo.
The first year's $100 million would allow for the completion of the Lake Mental Health facility as well as four new dorms at existing prisons, Betta said. But the House would not commit to that plan.
After the final vote on this year's budget, Sen. Jennifer Bradley, R-Fleming Island, and chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Civil and Criminal Justice said the $100 million commitment "will go a long way to fund both long-term construction projects and the repair of our aging prison infrastructure."
Brandes says politics is only part of the problem.
"I think it’s also that most of your (lawmakers) have never been to prison. They’ve never been associated with a prison," he said.
Who does?
Inmates' mothers, sisters, and other loved ones. Also former inmates.
They point to data and share their stories in the hope for better.
Brandes and others believe the network of advocates has grown, in part out of desperation.
The News-Journal has spoken at length with six of these advocates from all over the state.
Stuckey's son was incarcerated, and while she visited him, she met another inmate who would become her husband. He's serving a 30-year sentence, she said, because he stole six DVDs from a Sam's Club. Her social media tweets cover a wide range of Florida corrections issues, while her background as a retired accountant makes her a reliable resource for other advocates.
Denise Rock, a paralegal, started and runs Florida Cares, a West Palm Beach nonprofit that helps inmates and their families. She offered an example: If an incarcerated person is stabbed or has a heart attack and is flown out to a hospital, the department doesn't contact the family, as its only requirement is to contact a family after a death. So advocates pass word along until it gets to the ailing inmate's family. "Because wouldn’t you want to know if your loved one is injured and in a hospital?"
Jackie Dunn of Fernandina Beach is a data analyst. The imprisonment of her son opened her eyes to the challenges of the corrections system, that change is needed, she said, "but lawmakers are not brave enough to make the moves."
Marsia O’Ferral, an esthetician, moved to Tallahassee to be closer to her fiancé, who's serving a life sentence in Wakulla Correctional Institution after his 1997 conviction of armed robbery. She has lasered in on a law that enhances sentences for people who have previously served time in prison.
Tanaine Jenkins of Jacksonville shares her story of getting past the shame and stigma associated with her conviction and two-year prison stint, even as she works to improve others' reentry from prison.
And Angie Hatfield of Sebring has perhaps experienced the most heartbreak. Her daughter was sexually assaulted by a prison guard. Later, a few months after her release, Brianna Oberly died of an overdose in 2022. Hatfield was broken but said other advocates helped pick her up and she has started her own nonprofit to promote youth harm reduction.
Karen Stuckey: Tweeting her way to influence
Although her son was released from prison after 20 years last year, Karen Stuckey remains tied to the FDC through her husband Stephen. He is scheduled to be released in 2029.
Stuckey visited him regularly, but last year he was moved from Marion Correctional Institution in Ocala to Graceville Correctional Facility, which has been good for him.
But because it's so far, Stuckey hadn't been able to visit her husband in more than a year until recently.
Stuckey first started working with other advocates around 2010, but during the pandemic she logged into Twitter, now known as X, and found a new voice.
She encourages lawmakers to visit prisons.
She has tweeted about abuse by guards, wrongfully convicted people and the escalating cost of phone calls and canteen snacks in prisons.
When she tweeted a picture of unappetizing prison food, some 35,000 people saw it.
Stuckey has praise for FDC Secretary Ricky Dixon and Sen. Bradley for increasing educational programming in prisons.
In her post-session statement, Bradley noted "a historic expansion of education and vocational programming" in corrections to help address inmate educational deficits, prepare them for work and reduce recidivism.
Stuckey has started to turn up the heat in her tweets about how most Florida prisons have no air conditioning.
"It was in the high 90s here in Central Florida. Can you imagine what it was in a cell or confinement? #CookingThemAlive," she tweeted on May 9.
Jackie Dunn: Florida corrections data amounts to crisis
Jackie Dunn, a data analyst from Fernandina Beach, never thought much about the criminal justice system until Nov. 14, 2020.
Her son Lucas, 20, was speeding and under the influence of alcohol when he rear-ended a truck driven by Ted Reese, an active-duty U.S. Army staff sergeant. Reese, 41, was killed.
Lucas Dunn was sentenced to nearly 19 years in prison on a charge of DUI manslaughter. His mother said she and other friends had expected him to face prison, and that he had even offered to serve 10 years, pay Reese’s family $1 million, and perform community service recounting the story to raise awareness for others. Reese’s family opposed the plea deal, Jackie Dunn said, which led to the long prison sentence.
“He can’t bring Ted Reese back. I mean, obviously that would be amazing ifthat could happen, but it can't,” Jackie Dunn said. “The fact of the matter is, what can we do now? Can (Lucas) do something inthat in the man's honor, and it would be to stop even one other kid from doing what he did? That's to me the only way that he can really make a difference. And so sitting in prison. Not being a dangerous, you know, human for society is not going to be the highest and best use of his time or the taxpayers’ time.”
The imprisonment of her son opened Jackie Dunn’s eyes to a glaring problem that few people see: the corrections crisis.
She is complimentary of the FDC leadership, as well as some lawmakers.
"But there’s some that just make me really sad because they just don’t care,” she said.
She has set about putting her data analysis skills to use, trying to raise awareness of the $2.2 billion in critical prison needs, prison population growth trending upward, and continuing challenges of hiring and keeping correctional officers.
She points out concerns, such as the fact that 44% of people who leave Florida prisons do not have their GED, and that parole would incentivize more prisoners to earn that degree and build skills for their safe release. By keeping people in prison long past the point of being dangerous to society, taxpayers are footing a much larger bill than is necessary, she said: "The only punishment we've we have in Florida is the most expensive thing we can offer, and that's barbed wire and cement.”
Angie Hatfield: 'Like pulling your tooth'
Angie Hatfield of Sebring said her advocacy is a tribute to her daughter, Brianna Oberly, who died of an overdose on Feb. 1, 2022.
Her death came just over four months after being released from a 10-year sentence for aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and three other felonies.
While in prison, Oberlywas sexually assaulted by a prison guard at Lowell Correctional Institution, where she had been transferred in 2019, her mother said. The following year, the Department of Justice found the prison had conditions that violated prisoners’ Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment, as “there is reasonable cause to believe that Lowell fails to protect prisoners from sexual abuse by the facility’s staff.”
Oberly’s death sent Hatfield into a tailspin.
“For that first year, I just sat there and waited to die, until I became basically destitute,” Hatfield said. “And I have had people – I was traveling with a little trailer – and I have had people that I know because of this network ... I have had a tremendous amount of support.”
That led Hatfield to establish Brianna’s 2nd Chance, a nonprofit that offers drug abuse outreach.
Additionally, she sought a new law that would require Lowell’s guards to wear body cameras at all times, as a deterrence against abuse. Sen. Shevrin Jones, D-Miami Gardens, filed a bill, but it was never heard.
“It’s like pulling your tooth," she said, "while banging your head against a wall and holding down a rabid dog with your foot, all at the same time."
Marsia O'Ferral: 'Let's start somewhere'
Until three years ago, Marsia O'Ferral had no connection to the Florida corrections system. She was a single, 58-year-old esthetician and meditation teacher who was catching up with an old family friend whose son Steve Brana had been in prison for nearly 25 years of a life sentence.It shocked her.
In 1997, Brana was convicted of armed robbery, his second strike under Florida’s then-new Prison Releasee Reoffender Law.At 16, he was convicted on burglary charges and served nearly four years in prison.
Many people might be familiar with the “three-strikes-you're-out" laws that gained traction in the 1990s. Florida lawmakers decided to one-up that and pass a two-strikes law.
That means judges mustgive enhanced sentences topeople convicted of felonies within three years of their release from prison after first being convicted of a felony carrying at least a 1-year sentence. For some felonies, that means 30 years without the possibility of parole. For others, it could result in life.
Brandes, the former senator, said sentences that are too long are just as unjust as those that are too short, and that most people who’ve served 10 or 15 years in prison are “radically different” than when they committed their crime.
“When you’re getting sentenced to life in prison under a state PRR statute when no murder was committed, no rape was committed, but you had an armed robbery conviction when you were 19 and had a prior drug conviction when you were 17 and spent a little time (in prison) ... that’s a hell of a thing, to get sentenced to life,” Brandes said.
O’Ferral’s friend, who lived in Port St. Lucie, was having difficulty visiting her son at Wakulla Correctional Institution, about 17 miles south of the Florida Capitol Building in Tallahassee.
So O’Ferral offered to visit him.
“Over the course of time, we became really close, because I saw him as a person, not as someone incarcerated,” she said.
They got engaged.
In January 2023, she moved from Panama City Beach to Tallahassee, not only to be closer to Wakulla but also to fight for changes in the correctional system in the Capitol and remind lawmakers that prisoners are their consitutents, too.
“That’s a big thing for me, making sure legislators understand this, because I don’t think that they do.”
Denise Rock: Florida Cares helps inmates and families navigate the system
When Denise Rock first visited a loved one in a Florida prison in 2014, she said the lack of cellphones, internet and other technology made it feel like stepping back in time 30 years.
“Once you get on the visitor’s list and you see what you see, you can’t look back. You just can’t unsee that,” she said.
In 2017, with the help of a nurse and a Realtor, Rock – a paralegal -- started Florida Cares Charity Corp., a West Palm Beach-based organization that provides resources for families of inmates. Specifically, the nonprofit has a ticketing system on its website that allows families to ask questions and make complaints anonymously that Florida Cares will bring directly to the FDC.
As executive director, Rock has forged relationships with the department to address some of the concerns, whether they are as serious as abuse allegations or as simple as a water fountain that’s not working.
The option to report anonymously is important because some families fear retaliation, either against their inmate or their visitation rights.
“I know that sounds preposterous and that sounds crazy, and I agree it does, but apparently that has happened or that fear has been instilled in people, so they literally will not report that stuff,” Rock said.
One of Florida Cares’ biggest wins came in 2018 by responding to a proposed FDC rule change that would allow prisons to dramatically cut back on visitation hours.
The organization examined the process, determined how to file formal objections and spread the word so that hundreds of families could demonstrate their opposition.
“Ultimately, the department did not change that rule,” Rock said. “It was the first time people had joined together to obtain success with the department.”
From there, Florida Cares’ mission expanded and Rock and the organization routinely raises concerns with the FDC. There have been other wins, such as helping to reduce the price of snacks in prison canteens and helping to combate heat in the un-air conditioned prisons by allowing inmates to wear less clothing and making more water available.
Rock has also staked out positions on some of the bigger-picture corrections issues Florida faces in coming years, such as the aging inmate population.
Of a little over 82,000 incarcerated in prison in 2022, nearly 3 in 10 were age 50 or older, leading to higher healthcare costs.
"We really should be revisiting people that are age 50 or over to see: Have they learned their lesson? Are they a threat to public safety?” she said. “And if they are not if they served 20 years, we should parole them.”
Tanaine Jenkins: Struggles with stigma are real
When Tanaine Jenkins went to prison in 2010, she lost identity and gained shame and stigma which stayed with her long past her two-year sentence.
It wasn’t until she started to embrace her story, to share her version of it as she did at a 2022 TEDx talk in Jacksonville that she started to shed some of the shame that came with her conviction for a scheme to defraud a financial institution.
“The worst part of the prison experience wasn’t the prison experience at all. It was the feeling of worthlessness when I came home,” she said in that talk.
The prison met her basic needs, she said in an interview with The News-Journal.
“Before prison, I was a business analyst making really good money," Jenkins said. "But when I came home, I felt worthless, and society treated me as such.”
Life was a struggle after prison, she said, but family and friends “pretty much saved me.”
In trying to better understand herself, Jenkins underwent counseling and learned she had an impulse control disorder. That helped her understand some of the mistakes she had made in life and gave her a strategy to avoid them in the future.
About four years after her release, she landed what she thought would be a good job. But a background check showed the employer she had been to prison.
“Because of my status, I was walked out of that job,” she said.
When she struggled financially and didn't pay back $20,000 in restitution, Jenkins was found in violation of her parole, extending her probation by five years.
Jenkins said she also was questioned a couple of times about leaving Duval County, which the terms of her probation didn’t allow. Once was to travel to a hospital in a neighboring county where her grandmother was dying. Another time, she went by ambulance to a hospital for a medical emergency. The nearest hospital was across the county line.
She ultimately was able to complete her probation and pay back the restitution, as well as all court fines and fees, but keeps her eyes on the corrections system, working as a recidivism strategist and re-entry expert for nonprofits., working for nonprofits, and advocating for policies such as the Clean Slate Initiative, which involves automatic record clearance after a specified amount of time following a person’s release from prison with no backsliding.
"If I have no hiccups after I am released from prison, while I am on probation," Jenkins asked, "why am I still paying for the crime that you already sentenced me for?”
