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Florida Prison Chief Offers Good Plan To Stop Cycle of Recidivism

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 23, 2008

It's ironic that Florida's prison system is called the Department of Corrections, since there is very little correcting going on.

Florida has lacked the political will to provide serious money for rehabilitation, including drug-abuse treatment programs, which might break the cycle and reduce crime in our communities.

But DOC Secretary Walter McNeil envisions a new future, one that moves the system beyond a singular focus of building massive prisons in rural areas that need jobs.

McNeil wants Florida to provide treatment programs for inmates close to being released. Even more groundbreaking, he wants to create a state jail system for nonviolent offenders serving sentences of less than 18 months.

The jails would be built across the state, close to urban areas where most inmates' families live. McNeil says such facilities could reduce average operating costs, since a smaller number of corrections officers could manage this population.

The proposal marries well with the state's growing network of road and work camps - the small dorm-like facilities secured with gates and barbed wire that last year added 10,200 beds to the system. One such camp is located on Ullmerton Road in Pinellas County, though passing motorists would never know it was there. Its inmates provide valuable work to local governments.

With the prison population growing at an alarming clip, McNeil is right to find alternatives to building more prisons. The state's $2 billion-a-year system, which now houses 98,000 inmates, is expected to need 125,000 beds by 2012.

It's also good to see McNeil demonstrating the political courage needed to obtain rehabilitation for criminals nearing their release. For while prison populations have soared, politicians have cut back on rehabilitation to appear tough on crime. Yet insiders know that keeping inmates busy in treatment and educational programs can make prisons safer and lower recidivism.

About two-thirds of inmates have significant drug and alcohol problems, according to a 2007 report by the state's Office of Program Policy Analysis. Another 60 percent are illiterate.

Yet only about one in 10 are given access to treatment or educational services.

The lack of behavior-modification programs is a big reason why 13,000 inmates re-enter Florida prisons each year, costing taxpayers $300 million to house them.

Yet programs that could help them stay out of prison would cost just $30 million, McNeil says.

The choice should be an easy call for Florida. It's far better to save hundreds of millions of dollars and the consequences of crime than to continue a practice that leads to recidivism and makes our communities less safe.

The question for the Florida Legislature is whether it will have the political will to wean itself off the big prisons it loves to build.

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