Plagued with violence and dire conditions, Florida prison wardens plead for funding

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https://www.theledger.com/news/20190...ad-for-funding

Once again, FDOC in trouble because they're having trouble staffing the prisons.

Florida Legislature still wonders why the turnover rate is so high at FDOC and trying to figure out how to stop this?

The answer is incredibly simple, but evidently, FL legislators just don’t want to face the truth: They need to pay more. Low pay is the number one reason people quit, and when people quit, FDOC need to spend more to recruit, train, and retain new employees. It often ends up being more expensive to bet on the fact that they can find cheaper replacements than to just give out raises.

The Florida prison system is dead and broken after decades of neglect.

[Unregistered]

The politicians of both parties want to run FDC as cheaply as possible and are not interested in fixing the underlying problem of the lack of competitive pay because it requires more money.

[Unregistered]

You get what you pay for. My office has incredible turnover with no help in sight. If I had the power this is what I would implement immediately. The starting pay for a CPO should be $45,000 with an annual pay raise of 3% every July 1st as long as your performance appraisal is 3.0 or higher. Second, change the academy to 4 weeks and have the FDLE exam on the second to last day and have it graded that day. Once the recruit passes the test, they are certified but on probation and then must complete a 6 month FTO program at their assigned office. Once they complete the FTO program they are off probation. Eliminate the ISP, go back to one page WMR's, eliminate home verifications for PTI and institute a one time home verification for minimums. Allow officers to park the state cars at their residence overnight when they are doing late night field work, buy better used cars for each office and eliminate redundant forms that just check the block and serve no other purpose except clutter the files. Also I would eliminate community control and use a curfew system in its place. These new policies would cut the turnover rate in community corrections in half and save a lot of money that is wasted hiring untrained personnel and long useless academies. On the prison side they have to raise the pay for CO's and get more personnel, its that simple. Working inside of a prison is a crappy job and you must up the pay or you will continue to see massive turnover. No motivation class or pep talk is going to solve FDC's problems.

[Unregistered]

You get what you pay for. My office has incredible turnover with no help in sight. If I had the power this is what I would implement immediately. The starting pay for a CPO should be $45,000 with an annual pay raise of 3% every July 1st as long as your performance appraisal is 3.0 or higher. Second, change the academy to 4 weeks and have the FDLE exam on the second to last day and have it graded that day. Once the recruit passes the test, they are certified but on probation and then must complete a 6 month FTO program at their assigned office. Once they complete the FTO program they are off probation. Eliminate the ISP, go back to one page WMR's, eliminate home verifications for PTI and institute a one time home verification for minimums. Allow officers to park the state cars at their residence overnight when they are doing late night field work, buy better used cars for each office and eliminate redundant forms that just check the block and serve no other purpose except clutter the files. Also I would eliminate community control and use a curfew system in its place. These new policies would cut the turnover rate in community corrections in half and save a lot of money that is wasted hiring untrained personnel and long useless academies. On the prison side they have to raise the pay for CO's and get more personnel, its that simple. Working inside of a prison is a crappy job and you must up the pay or you will continue to see massive turnover. No motivation class or pep talk is going to solve FDC's problems.

Good proposals. Take another step further and eliminate ALL the programs for inmates. Use that money to improve the pay and FDOC will fix the recruitment and retention problem.

I believe Florida prisons should be ran just like the Black Dolphin Prison in Russia.

[Unregistered]

Good proposals. Take another step further and eliminate ALL the programs for inmates. Use that money to improve the pay and FDOC will fix the recruitment and retention problem.

I believe Florida prisons should be ran just like the Black Dolphin Prison in Russia.

I agree with eliminating worthless programs. They are created to pad some bureaucrats resume. Programs like T4C, drug court, etc,, are worthless and the stats will show they are a waste of time and resources. The change must come on the offenders own, he/she isn't going to sit in some court room or in classroom and be convinced to change. They'll change when they realize they have had enough. Its that simple. But if it really became that, a lot of fat cats would be out of a lot of money. All this treatment crap is a scam and a money grab. The illusion has become real, and the more real it becomes, the more desperately they want it.

[Unregistered]

Yep, all the noise is being made by the prison folks. None made by the Probation folks. So, who do you think will get the money?

[Unregistered]

They do not want the problems fixed or they would fix them. They try to alleviate the problems on the prison side by keeping the s*itbags out in the public as long as possible and tooling around with dumb programs they expect the probation officers to manage!

Just in the 8 years of Rick Scott I seen offenders start out on a PTI case, work their way up to Community Control, then go to prison, get out and violate CRD, go back in, come out with no supervision; then commit a new series of crime for which they came back to a new prefix of DOP!

[Unregistered]

They do not want the problems fixed or they would fix them. They try to alleviate the problems on the prison side by keeping the s*itbags out in the public as long as possible and tooling around with dumb programs they expect the probation officers to manage!

Just in the 8 years of Rick Scott I seen offenders start out on a PTI case, work their way up to Community Control, then go to prison, get out and violate CRD, go back in, come out with no supervision; then commit a new series of crime for which they came back to a new prefix of DOP!

You are probably right that they do not want to fix anything. How come they never produce stats showing how successful T4C or drug court is? To me they are both a joke and a complete waste of time and money. Our drug court officer spends hours upon hours in stupid meetings with treatment people, sao, pd and the judge and I would say the success rate is dismal. These druggies are given numerous chances and yet they still use and re-offend. We call it enabling court in my office.

[Unregistered]

All our new Secretary cares about are his weekly messages talking about how he was beat up daily! No wonder he has the Napoleon Syndrome!! He is about worthless.

[Unregistered]

How stupid is Florida with its prisons being understaffed? If they want to keep people from quitting, then they should pay more. If not, the prisons were burn to the ground after decades of underfunded and neglect.