CHANGE SOUGHT IN FLORIDA PRISON SYSTEM

A Movement Among Powerful Florida Leaders To Overhaul The State's Prison
System Is Gaining Steam As Lawmakers Grapple With Shrinking Resources

A call by Florida's most powerful business lobby to halt prison
construction and reform the criminal justice system is gaining
surprising traction among policymakers in the wake of a deepening
budget crisis and growing evidence that building new prison beds will
not reduce crime.

Four months after the head of Associated Industries of Florida stunned
lawmakers with his plea to slow prison growth, a who's-who of
business, religious and political leaders are asking Gov. Charlie
Crist to consider alternatives to incarceration for non-violent
offenders, particularly drug addicts.

Crist and state lawmakers this week received an "open letter" from
opinion-makers calling for a "bold and serious conversation about
justice reform."

The statement was signed by three former Florida attorneys general --
Jim Smith, Bob Butterworth and Richard Doran -- along with retired
Department of Corrections secretary James McDonough and the heads of
the Florida Association of Counties and the Florida Catholic Conference.

"At a time when Florida is in serious recession and facing a deep
state budget crisis, the $2 billion-plus budget of the Florida
Department of Corrections has grown larger; and without reform, that
budget will continue to grow at a pace that crowds out other
mission-critical state services such as education, human service
needs, and environmental protection," the group wrote.

Calling itself the Coalition for Smart Justice, the group is asking
state leaders to bolster education, drug and alcohol treatment and
faith-based and character-building programs both within the state
prison system and in community settings as an alternative to prison.

Coalition members also want Crist to "immediately implement" a bill
passed by the Legislature in 2008 that created "the much needed"
Correctional Policy Advisory Council to offer new directions for
criminal justice administration.

Staying the course, coalition members wrote, will lead to "too many
non-violent individuals being incarcerated, too many prisons needing
to be built at astounding public cost [and] too many young people
moving from the juvenile justice system into the adult justice system."

Breaking Cycle

At the root of the state's failures, the group says, is the
unwillingness of lawmakers to invest in programs -- such as job
training, education and substance-abuse treatment -- that can break
the cycle of crime and reduce recidivism.

McDonough, the state's former drug czar and prisons chief, said
Florida can avoid the need to build a new $100 million prison each
year by spending one-fifth that amount on drug treatment. "The math
is irrefutable," McDonough said. "That's $100 million right there
that you don't have to spend immediately."

Gretl Plessinger, DOC's spokeswoman, said the equation is far more
complicated. Since the prison system runs on a five-year cycle based
on "strategic projections," the corrections agency cannot simply
"stop construction on a dime."

"Several projects are nearing completion," Plessinger said. "We've
already spent money, and to stop construction now would cost taxpayers
quite a lot of money."

DOC Secretary Walter McNeil does not favor the early release of
inmates, Plessinger said, but does agree with the coalition's goal of
increased spending on drug treatment and other programs designed to
aid offenders' safe return to their communities. Close to 90 percent
of state inmates eventually are released, she said.

"Secretary McNeil knows inmates who receive basic education, job
skills training and substance abuse treatment are less likely to
commit another crime and return to prison," Plessinger said.
"Through re-entry [programs], we can reduce our recidivism rate which
will increase public safety and lower our inmate population."

Sterling Ivey, a Crist spokesman, declined to discuss the letter in
depth. "We have received the letter and we are currently reviewing
the information," he said.

A driving force in the coalition is J. Allison DeFoor II, an
admittedly unlikely prison reform activist as a former Monroe County
sheriff, prosecutor, judge and reelection running mate for former Gov.
Bob Martinez. Now an ordained Episcopal priest, the colorful
politician tends a ministry at Wakulla Correctional Institution near
Tallahassee.

Among DeFoor's gripes: though faith-based programs at Wakulla have
reduced recidivism among inmates from 33 percent to just 7 percent,
Florida's waiting list for such programs has grown to 10,000-strong.
"I've seen everything that doesn't work," he says. "And I've seen
what does work."

"I can flatly tell you that 75 percent of the people in the system --
probably more than that -- have substance abuse and psychological
problems," and treatment, education and counseling can help many of
those men and women stay out of prison, he said.

Prevention

Butterworth, a former Broward sheriff, prosecutor and 20-year attorney
general, said his two-year stint as secretary of the Department of
Children & Families reinforced his belief in the value of prevention
dollars -- which are typically the first to be cut during lean years.

"Sometimes the worst dollar we spend," Butterworth said, "pays for
bricks and mortar."

Florida still will need prisons for violent felons, Butterworth said.
But spending $1 billion over the next decade to build new prisons for
drug addicts and people with mental illness, he added, is "nuts.
There's just got to be a better way."

Steve Seibert, a former Pinellas County commissioner and secretary of
the Deparment of Community Affairs under Gov. Jeb Bush, said he
discovered another reason for reform while touring an Overtown
community center: Leaders told him 70 percent of the neighborhood's
men were ex-felons.

'That was an 'Aha' moment for me," said Seibert, who as director of
policy for the Collins Center for Public Policy is a coalition leader.

"All the affordable housing, economic development, parks, water and
infrastructure-type stuff doesn't mean squat when 70 percent of the
men in a community are ex-felons."

And most Americans appear to agree with him. A just-released poll by
the National Council on Crime and Delinquency showed that nearly eight
in 10 Americans favor probation, restitution and community service
over prison for "nonserious, nonviolent, nonsexual" offenders.

McDonough, who calls himself a pragmatist, said that ultimately the
most powerful winds steering reform are financial.

"I think the recession probably will bring the pendulum swing to its
highest point and it will start to swing the other way," he said.
"Legislators don't want to spend that much money."