William A Mcrae, the Head of the Florida State Prison in 1913 stated:
"What has the state done for the convict? Nothing. But we have taken
the money for his labor and used some for every known purpose except one.
. . the betterment of his unfortunate condition."
The State of Florida has
continually denied the convict a chance for rehabilitation. They have sold
him to labor for the private industry and have not utilized the systems in
place such as Liberal Arts Education, Vocational Rehabilitation, and Moral
Intervention to assist the convict in becoming a functional member of
society. Florida has firmly stated its goals regarding the convict and his
future: "The Florida Department of Corrections. . . declared that its
primary mission [is] to protect society by incarcerating convicted
offenders [and that its] secondary mission is to offer every offender the
education, training, work experience, and counseling necessary to return
to society as a productive and law-abiding citizen."
Over the decades, many
men have argued that there are not enough acceptable educations programs
in place in the prison systems. Robert C. Rowland (quoting a B.
Gottsfredson and M. Conville study) says that education programs are
"typically no longer available or have been curtailed sharply"
due to lack of public conviction in the success of these programs.
However, 39 studies of education programs conducted by Ted Palmer have
found that a 48% positive recidivism rate of success. When Dennis Anderson
Thorp (Ph.D., University of Florida) asked prisoners if any of the prison
staff can and do interrupt classes or other learning situations, over 60%
of the supervisors reported that the situation did exist and 67% of the
closed custody institution prisoners indicated that their classes were
interrupted often to perform jobs for the institution.
The situation
surrounding liberal art education in the Florida State prison systems is a
severe lack of funding. Of the $110,064,451 expended in Florida State
Correctional Facilities only $7,408,022 of 6.7% was spent on education
services and only $2,033,123 or 1.8% was spent on vocational education.
Scott Seegott, a former inmate of the Florida State Prison system says of
the situation: "When I was in prison many people did not even know
how to read or write. I became a tutor to work in the Department of
Corrections G.E.D (General Education Diploma) program for inmates under
the age of 21. I found that most wanted to learn, but no one spent time
with them. Being in prison, they had nothing but time to use." The
inmates for the most part do wish to better themselves through education,
but the funding nor the staffing is in place to assist them.
The situation is not
totally without hope because we know that prisoners can be positively
affected through liberal arts education programs. The state of Florida
could be an example among states by providing that education and by
proving that it is successful. The financial advantages are clear, the
rate at which convicts would return to prison would be considerably lower,
and convicts could use their new found education to return to society as
functioning, tax-paying citizens.
While Liberal Arts
Education is supposed to be the foundation of the rehabilitation process,
vocational education should be the core of the process. The goals of
vocational education programs in Florida State Prisons are perceived by
the Department of Corrections are:
1) To evaluate each
inmate from the perspectives of his/her prior work history, occupational
interests, occupational aptitudes and employment opportunities in the
community; 2) to prepare all inmates who do not posses marketable job
skills for entry level employment in an occupation which is personally
meaningful and economically rewarding; 3) to upgrade job competencies of
the semi-skilled; and 4) to coordinate vocational with the academic and
re-socialization needs of the inmates.
Yet is has been shown
that the success of vocational programs seem narrow. A large amount of
research has shown these programs are unsuccessful at employing prisoners
in the real world or at lowering the rate of repeat offenders. The money
that has been put into these programs has already been shown to be not
enough. The new ideal for "vocational" education is thriving
quite well in the state of Florida. This new "program" can be
called the "convict lease program".
The convict lease system
is not new to the state of Florida. In the early 1800's, prison labor was
leased to private industry to produce a variety of items. Some of the
things produced by prison labor were shoes, clocks, carpets, and hats.
This was in accordance with the puritanical and Quaker ideals of the time
that believed that hard labor was cleansing to the soul. In leasing
prisoners to perform hard manual labor, Florida began a long history of
using the convict for monetary purposes that were ostensibly for
restitution. A bill passed in 1999 by Governor Jeb Bush claims to allow
businesses to pay wages to prisoners as they would to outside labor. This
would allow prisoners to become as successful on the "inside" as
they could be on the "outside" but with paying for room and
board, restitution, taxes, and other miscellaneous fees, prisoners will
only be realize about 33% of their pay. These numbers seems especially
difficult when the convicts make only 20 to 50 cents and hour. The
"on the job training" programs put in place now benefit private
industry first, the government second, and the prisoners last. When the
convict enters prison he has become a commodity to the state.
The prison system is big
business in the state of Florida. That is why there are so many private
industries that would like to own a portion. It's business, so when
convicts return to prison repeatedly, they add to the bottom line. In
1981, the governor of the state of Florida passed a law to reorganize
prison industries. The Department of Corrections created a non-profit
organization called "Prison Enterprises, Education, and
Rehabilitation", or PEER. They "leased" prisoners to
private industry. PEER was created to rehabilitate the prisoners by
providing "job training" in useful vocations. This program was
shortly put out of commission in favor of a new non-profit organization
created by Jack Eckerd, the founder of Eckerd Drugstores.
The new program is called
Prison Rehabilitative Industries and Diversified Enterprises, or PRIDE.
PRIDE now controls Florida's 51 prison industries. According to the
publicly reported financial records of the Corporation for 1998 only
$900,000 of the available $4.2 million dollars for program support was
paid for PRIDE's job training and post-release job placement.
Time has shown that
leasing convicts to private industry is a way to use prisoners to
monetarily help the state, but does not assist the prisoners in a socially
useful way. It has not been shown to decrease recidivism rates, or to
assist the convicts in job placement after release. Instead, money thrown
into these programs is used to benefit private enterprises and not to
assist the prisoners in becoming functional members of society upon their
release.
The financial advantages of using
prisoners to perform labor for the state and for private industry has
over-shadowed and harmed the programs in place to assist the prisoners in
re-entering society. The education process and the vocational
rehabilitation process could be used more effectively if the focus were to
switch from the financial value of the prisoners and be placed onto
potential social values the soon to be ex-prisoners will offer their
communities. These methods would allow them to make amends for their
crimes against society by becoming functioning tax-paying members of
society.
