BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Florida’s Auditor General said in a report issued earlier this year that the state’s Department of Corrections needs to improve its recordkeeping for incidents, use of force reports, and other items.
Incident reports
In a June 2024 report, Auditor General Sherrill F. Norman said that according to Department of Corrections policy, all incident reports must be submitted to a warden within three days of an incident after review by a shift supervisor and the institution’s chief of security.
The Auditor General said her agency reviewed 101 incidents from 13 selected state correctional institutions and found that 10 reports were submitted to wardens past the three-day deadline.
For five of the tardy reports, the three-day due date fell on a weekend when wardens do not typically work.
Three incidents were filled out by correctional officers up to six days after the incident and not reviewed by the security chief up to 14 days after an incident.
“Department management indicated that one of the incident report forms had to be returned for signature by a correctional officer who was on leave,” the auditor said, “another incident report form was delayed to obtain additional reports from other witnesses, and management was unable to determine the reason for the third incident report form delay.”
One report did not reach the shift supervisor on time because it was emailed to a supervisor on leave instead of the on-duty supervisor.
Three correctional officers were involved in one incident, but only one submitted a report about it. The security chief did not review the completed report until 13 days after the incident.
The auditor also criticized the corrections department for not reconciling institution incident report logs to the individual reports, which would have ensured that all reports were submitted and logged.
In addition, the department has no centralized depository for accumulating and analyzing incident reports statewide.
Use of force reporting
The auditor said that according to Department of Corrections policy, all staff involved in a use of force incident are required to complete a use of force incident report form that must be reviewed by the warden and sent to the department’s inspector general within 11 business days of the warden’s preliminary review.
The warden’s preliminary review should include determining whether the application or demonstration of force was lawful and procedurally appropriate.
The Office of Inspector General is then required to report back to the warden within 14 business days on its determination of whether the use of force complied with applicable laws and department rules and procedures.
The auditor said her office examined department records for 80 use-of-force incidents from 13 selected correctional institutions and found that two were not timely reported to the Office of the Inspector General and three were not timely submitted back to a warden from the Office of the Inspector General’s Office.
Other issues
The state auditor also found problems with the department’s handling of maintenance requests, controls over access to its information technology systems, and accounting for trust fund expenditures.
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