Thread: Florida prison population reaches 100,000

Article published Dec 19, 2008
Florida prison population reaches 100,000
By Bill Cotterell
FLORIDA CAPITAL BUREAU POLITICAL EDITOR

The head of Florida's prison system was just winding up a radio interview Friday morning when a message buzzed on his BlackBerry — at 8:17 a.m., the state's prison population hit 100,000 for the first time.

Department of Corrections Secretary Walt McNeil had been expecting it. As the Legislature looks for places to cut spending, McNeil has been guiding the growth of the state's 137 facilities while trying to put more emphasis on education and rehabilitation programs he hopes will slow the revolving doors of the system.

"Some time in the next 20 or 30 years, some 80,000 of those 100,000 prisoners will be coming back to our communities," he said. "That's why we want to emphasize re-entry and rehabilitation, to protect our citizens against them re-offending and preying on society."

No one knows who was the 100,000th inmate. DOC spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said the department's computers count every prisoner in the 60 prisons, plus various work camps, halfway houses and other lock-ups across the state.

She said inmate population grew from 72,007 in mid-2001 to 98,192 last June 30, increasing by about 2,000 to 5,000 every year.

McNeil, a former Tallahassee police chief, said the state releases about 40,000 prisoners each year and roughly 13,000 of them are back in custody within three years. He said some prison facilities have built large tents, which are not currently in use, and others have converted some vocational classrooms or other buildings into dormitories.

"We don't have any inmates sleeping on floors, in gymnasiums or any of those kind of extraordinary things," he said. "We've known for some time now that we were going to eclipse the 100,000 mark and we've been preparing for it."

"We're going to make sure that some inmates are never released to prey upon their communities again," McNeil said, but he warned that the upward spiral is not good for the state, financially or in terms of public safety. McNeil said the Criminal Justice Estimating Conference has projected a need for the equivalent of 19 more prisons, of about 1,300 inmates each, over the next five years if growth continues as it has.

"With the rising population, we continue to erode the dollars available to us," he said. "More than 40 percent of our inmates come back two and three times, and those are the prisoners who are causing the growth in the system."

He hopes to avoid the need for at least three such institutions by improving education, job training and other programs for prisoners. McNeil emphasized that it's not for the inmates, but for the safety of the taxpayers when they get out.

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He hopes to avoid the need for at least three such institutions by improving education, job training and other programs for prisoners. McNeil emphasized that it's not for the inmates, but for the safety of the taxpayers when they get out.

While law abiding citizens have theirs cut. That's one thing I noticed when I lived there......be a criminal or on welfare and they were more than happy to help you......forget it if you were a law abiding citizen barely scraping by. "Problem kids" got a better education than those in public school......their "problems" got them more breaks and special oppertunities than the rest did. Not so sure I totally agree with the philosophy when there's more reward for doing bad, than good.