FlaglerLive | May 8, 2019
Florida’s prison system is “widely overusing” the practice of solitary confinement to manage inmates, sometimes locking them up in cells that are no bigger than a parking spaces over often-minor infractions, according to a federal lawsuit.
FlaglerLive | August 23, 2018
A federal judge ordered Florida prisons to continue providing hormone treatments to Reiyn Keohane, who identifies as female since age 8. She started serving a 15-year sentence for attempted murder in 2014.
FlaglerLive | May 31, 2018
Visits help cut recidivism and keep families close, as recognized even by state law, but Florida prison officials are looking to cut costs.
FlaglerLive | May 22, 2018
Florida alone among 50 states bans Prison Legal News. Paul Wright, the publisher of the magazine, intends to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
FlaglerLive | May 4, 2018
Some $7.6 million in substance-abuse services in prisons will be eliminated, Another $1.6 million will be cut in transitional housing services.
FlaglerLive | May 2, 2018
Florida’s prisons are slashing substance-abuse services, transitional housing and re-entry programs, the very programs that keep inmates from returning to prison.
FlaglerLive | August 29, 2016
The Florida prisons department was required to provide item-by-item legal explanations for its decisions to black out information on public records requested by the Herald — a process known as redacting the information.
FlaglerLive | July 15, 2016
Florida prison officials argued they had a right to stop offering kosher meals if they got too expensive. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals said no in a unanimous decision.
FlaglerLive | July 12, 2016
Giving more “deference” to the Florida Department of Corrections, a sharply divided appeals court Tuesday approved revamping the legal process for inmates who challenge disciplinary decisions that take them out of the general prison population.
FlaglerLive | April 25, 2016
Anthony Julian Collins was two months shy of 17 when he was committed an attempted second-degree murder, carjacking with a firearm and attempted armed robbery.
FlaglerLive | March 5, 2016
The department has been reeling from a series of reports about issues such as contraband smuggling and abuse of inmates. The new jobs were part of an effort by the department to have corrections officers work eight-hour shifts instead of 12-hour shifts.
FlaglerLive | February 1, 2016
Fair Sentencing seeks to change laws of the 1990s, such as 10-20-Life, mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses and habitual-offender laws, as other states have done.
FlaglerLive | December 30, 2015
The Florida Department of Corrections is seeking to block state and national media organizations from filing a brief in a legal battle about whether a publication should be barred from Florida’s prisons.
FlaglerLive | September 1, 2015
Florida Corrections officials have censored the publications for six years, objecting to certain ads and calling them a security risk. No other state prison system agrees.
FlaglerLive | May 5, 2015
Correctional Officer Sgt. Christopher Michael Jernigan, 37, and Correctional Officer Donald Dwight Sims, Jr., 21, were arrested for brutalizing an inmate at Columbia Correctional Institution, the latest in a series of guard arrests in the troubled Florida Department of Corrections.
FlaglerLive | May 2, 2015
The federal lawsuit challenged corrections officials’ claim that they were not required to provide kosher meals, as well as the rules the agency used to determine who was eligible to receive the meals.
FlaglerLive | October 7, 2014
Latandra Ellington, 36, died Wednesday at Lowell Correctional Institution in Ocala, less than 24 hours after her family called prison officials to express concerns about her safety.
FlaglerLive | September 25, 2014
Two former prison sergeants are awaiting trial after being accused of ordering an inmate to be killed to protect the guards’ role as kingpins of an institution-wide gang operation.
FlaglerLive | September 20, 2014
All of the workers fired were on administrative leave pending a review launched earlier this summer. The housecleaning is part of the secretary’s attempt to salvage the reputation of the beleaguered agency in the wake of reports of widespread abuse and corruption, whistleblower complaints and federal investigations surrounding prisoner deaths.
FlaglerLive | June 5, 2014
A new study by the Pew Charitable Trusts finds Florida leading the nation in inmates who “max out” their sentences — serving 100 percent of their time and being released with no supervision beyond the prison gates, thus increasing the chance of re-offending. Almost a third do re-offend.
FlaglerLive | May 19, 2014
The dispute goes back to 2004 and centers on DJJ’s handling of a law that requires counties help pay for “predisposition,” or the costs of detaining underage offenders before they are sentenced. It affects 38 counties. The 29 poorest counties in the state are considered “fiscally constrained” and aren’t part of the cost-sharing formula.
FlaglerLive | September 26, 2013
Florida’s prisons have a $45.5 million deficit despite shuttering 10 prisons in recent years, so department head Mike Crews is finding new ways to save money, including refusing to replace broken dishwashers and making inmates do the work instead.
FlaglerLive | September 13, 2013
Corrections officials quietly reversed a blanket ban on tobacco at prisons this summer and are now allowing inmates at work release centers to have up to 10 packs of cigarettes each–just as Flagler County readies to ban smoking among new employees.
FlaglerLive | August 9, 2013
Paul Miller, the 66-year-old Flagler Beach resident sentenced to life in prison in June for the murder of Dana Mulhall, may serve out his life sentence in South Florida if his ongoing appeal is unsuccessful.
FlaglerLive | July 2, 2013
Paul Miller, sentenced in June to life in prison for the murder of Dana Mulhall in Flagler Beach last year, will be at Orlando’s Central Florida Reception System prison for a few weeks before being transferred to a permanent prison, though family proximity does not necessarily decide where the system will place him.
FlaglerLive | March 14, 2013
Analyzing Florida’s prisons and jails is a revelation of unsustainable incarceration rates and prison-building, argues Milissa Holland, who explores more logical alternatives to end the vicious cycle of punishment and recidivism.
FlaglerLive | February 5, 2013
The percentage of inmates who commit another crime within three years of release has dropped from 33 percent for those freed as of 2003 to 27.6 percent for those freed as of 2008, reducing the total number of inmates admitted.
FlaglerLive | November 16, 2012
In Florida, five inmates have separately sued Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw in federal court, claiming deprivation of federally protected civil rights through the denial of dental floss. The sheriff is denying it to them. Angel Castillo argues the sheriff is wrong.
FlaglerLive | June 12, 2012
Costing Florida taxpayers $1.4 billion a year, Florida’s prisons have some of the highest incarceration rates in the nation, too, even though the state still has the nation’s ninth highest violent crime rate, suggesting a poor return on investment.
FlaglerLive | January 12, 2012
Declining prison admissions created a surplus of prison beds, allowing the state prison system to cut its budget deficit by closing our older facilities, says Corrections Secretary Ken Tucker.
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