Florida now may ship prison inmates to other states.

[madfloridian]

They have been given that option by the legislature as a "safety valve", and it goes into effect on July 1.

Hat Tip to FLA Politics blog for this interesting tidbit.

Stop the madness

"Florida, famous for shipping orange juice all over the country, may yet be known for a very different kind of export: criminals. With the inmate population hovering around 100,000 and the state lacking money to build more prisons, the Legislature has given the Corrections Department the authority to ship inmates to other states for the first time." "Florida getting option to ship prison inmates to other states".

Here is more on the issue from the St. Pete Times.

TALLAHASSEE — Florida, famous for shipping orange juice all over the country, may yet be known for a very different kind of export: criminals. With the inmate population hovering around 100,000 and the state lacking money to build more prisons, the Legislature has given the Corrections Department the authority to ship inmates to other states for the first time.

"It's a safety valve," says the plan's sponsor, Sen. Victor Crist, a Tampa Republican who oversees prison spending. "This is not a mandate. It's a passive safety net."

Crist said shipping prisoners would be considered only as a last resort to avoid the early release of inmates because of overpopulation. The cost would be agreed upon in talks with the receiving states. A prison bill (SB 1722) that will be effective July 1 allows the state to ship inmates to state-run or private prisons in other states.

The nation's largest private prison company, Corrections Corporation of America, houses prisoners from eight states, including California, and has long promoted the transfer idea in Florida without success. Sen. Crist insists he came to this idea himself and not at the behest of the prison industry.

There are concerns about the inmates' family not being able to visit. Other states are doing it, and apparently some civil rights groups are getting involved.

According to news reports, Idaho officials last year removed about 300 prisoners from a GEO Group-run Texas prison because of understaffing and lax supervision. In Maine, civil rights groups and inmate lawyers said a plan to ship inmates to Oklahoma was a burden to families and would increase recidivism.

There are some interesting statements in the comments section. Here are a few:

"Florida should review its mandatory prison sentences for drug crimes. As a prosecutor, I sent several people to prison for long mandatory terms that extended YEARS beyond what they really deserved. Of course, no politician will have the guts to try."

..."What portion of those 100,000 people are non violent drug offenders? YOU"RE paying for all this folks! Wonder what these prisoner road trips will cost us? It's not like these other prison won't be making a profit off us. Prison pop soon to be 120k"

..."Maybe Florida should not be so quick to try to lock everybody up for everything? For Crist to say "I came up with the idea myself" is laughable.

I will bet some interesting discussions will be had on the topic.

[tabbycat31]

1. how about decriminalize pot

problem solved.

[Deja Q]

4. and oxycontin and rape and murder

:shrug:

[tabbycat31]

9. rape and murder should be criminal

smoking a joint should not, and be treated the same way as smoking a cigarette.

[Crazy Dave]

17. Nah...if you're a black man and they find a seed or a stem in your car...

You're going down. The prison population in Florida is highly disproportional when it comes to race.

[RedCappedBandit]

2. end the so called war on drugs

[ejpoeta]

3. how is pushing your prisoners onto other states just as strapped as yours

a 'safety valve'. sounds like pawning your problems off on other states to me. and i thought we didn't like when people did that. oh, we don't like when OTHER people do that. but it's ok for us. How about a state income tax. would that help? how about releasing non violent offenders? maybe they ought to worry about the criminals who hurt and steal from folks more than other things. just sayin.

[Deja Q]

5. I thought Republicans told people to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Charlie,

what have you to say on this double standard?

[jwirr]

8. Often when a prisoner is place far from home his/her family will move

closer if possible to be able to visit. That moves the troubled family into another states services. That even happens inside states from county to county.

[BlueJazz]

6. As a Floridian, I will say this: You can serve 5 times the Jail sentence...

....here for doing drugs then embezzling or stealing a large amount of money.

A good share of the population here think white collar crime is just a "Nuisance"

[madfloridian]

10. Look at the legislators who have literally destroyed this state...

in the name of corporations.

They are not even chastised.

[madrchsod]

7. "..when the prison doors are open the real dragon will fly out..."

[flvegan]

11. 21% in Florida jails for dope.

The number one offense for being in jail in Florida.

Priorities, people.

[madfloridian]

12. From a 2007 study, Florida prisons held about 15,000 inmates with mental illness

"According to a 2007 study, an estimated 15,000 inmates in Florida's jails on any given day have serious mental illnesses -- roughly one in four. And like the national study, the percentage of inmates with mental illness has climbed steadily in Florida."

http://srqcjr.blogspot.com/2009/06/jailing-mentally-ill-strains-justice.html

It seems to have started in FL years ago to save health care dollars, and no one seemed to care if it increased the jail population.

Reducing sentences for minor drug crimes and taking proper care of our mentally ill would solve a lot of problems.

[Obamanaut]

13. Odd that they say there is an overpopulation in Florida, when in

Suwannee County the new prison opening has been delayed a few months due to lack of inmates - this according to a report in our local paper last week. (No link, but I'll look for it.)

Edited to add a link and two paragraphs. Not the same article that was in the local paper, but it's close. And "defiantly" in their last sentence is their spelling, not mine - I'm guessing they meant "definitely".


http://www.northfloridanow.com/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=92&twindow=&mad=&sdetail=319&wpage=1&skeyword=&sidate=&ccat=&ccatm=&restate=&restatus=&reoption=&retype=&repmin=&repmax=&rebed=&rebath=&subname=&pform=&sc=2939&hn=northfloridanow&he=.com

“(Suwannee County, FL) -- The Suwannee Correctional Institution will delay opening, meaning the Department of Corrections will be delaying hiring as well. Florida Department of Corrections Spokesperson Gretl Plessinger says they were originally going to start hiring in August but that will be pushed back.
“In September will plan to hire for 55 more position for the main unit,” Plessinger said. “Then early next year, beginning in late January we plan to hire 158 more position for the Suwannee Annex.”


The Criminal Justice Estimating Department says the Florida inmate population is lower than expected; therefore the need for new housing isn’t as great as initially predicted. Plessinger says the prison population is still growing so they will defiantly need the Suwannee facility soon.”

[madfloridian]

14. Hmmm..that is weird. I don't think state officials know what they are doing.

In face I am sure they do not.

Fed up with things here, too much invested to move.

[Crazy Dave]

18. Maybe it's a scam like the people in the trucking industry once told me

They ship orange juice from Florida to California, then when they get to California they ship orange juice from there back to Florida. One driver told me they just put new labels on the juice he carried there and he drove right back without unloading. We have a Busch plant here in our town where the beer gets distributed nationwide but not here in the same state. The same brand that we get in our stores comes from St. Louis. And lastly I've seen something similar in construction for state and city projects over the years. They remove dirt from one sight and move it to another, then take dirt from same sight or maybe even the same dirt back to the original sight and charge the state or the city for each load.

Are inmates some kind of commodity for shady, palm greasing deals now?

[liberal N proud]

15. Not in my back yard

So it is OK to ship one states prisoners to other states while it is not OK to ship the Guantanamo detainees to other locations.

Rhetorical question: Why is it that America, where guns are legal that we have the most people incarcerated?

[WinkyDink]

16. Drastically reducing the humanizing effects of family visitation.

[lib2DaBone]

19. The Prison Industry is BIG in Florida.....

They will never end Prohibition (of Simple Marijuana) in FLorida. Too much money to be made.

More than one in five in Florida jail for non violent minor drugs...

Come to Florida on vacation... leave on probation.