BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Telegraph Staff Writer
STARKE— Two bills making their way through the Florida Legislature would expand the Department of Corrections’ inmate Welfare Trust Fund. The department’s leadership said it wants to use the money to finance inmate education, substance abuse and other programs.
The fund, which receives revenue from canteen sales, vending machines, hobby shops and commissions on inmate telephone calls, has been capped at $2.5 million a year since 2020, even though canteen and telephone commissions have reached up to $33 million a year.
An FDC vendor charges families up to 13.5 cents a minute for families to talk to inmates on the phone, in addition to other fees.
Between 2003 and 2020, all the revenue from those sources went straight to the state’s general revenue fund.
Deputy Secretary of Corrections Richard Comerford told a Senate committee earlier this year that programming like G.E.D. and college courses, vocational training and voluntary programming like Bible, parenting and literacy courses reduce violence, gang activity and contraband within institutions.
He said the department wants to expand the inmate welfare trust fund to pay for additional programming.
Comerford said the programming also reduces recidivism by providing inmates with basic education, job training, substance abuse prevention classes and anger management courses.
“Most individuals sentenced to prison will be released back into our communities,” he said, “approximately 83% based on current estimates. We want to help these inmates released be better than they came to us so that we can reduce victimization in our communities and prevent further incarceration.”
Inmates can earn G.E.D. diplomas, associate of arts, and bachelor’s degrees while serving time.
The deputy secretary added, however, that because of a lack of resources limiting course seats, only 17% of inmates are enrolled in programming.
Paying for porn
Prior to 2003, the state’s Inmate Welfare Trust Fund collected tens of millions of dollars and spent that money on inmate programs.
However, a 1996 report by the Auditor General criticized the lack of control over the money and pointed out expenditures for sports gear, fast food, televisions and other buys designed to pacify inmates rather than to educate them.
In 2003 Sen. Victor Crist sponsored a bill eliminating the fund and directing the money into the state’s general fund, according to a Sarasota Herald-Tribune analysis: Wasted Minds.
The Tampa Republican claimed some of the inmate welfare trust money was used to purchase pornography to placate inmates.
“They were showing porno in the prisons,” Crist told the newspaper. “We just wanted to fix the problem.”
In 2020, FDC Secretary Mark Inch lobbied to get the fund reinstated. Still, lawmakers capped it at $2.5 million a year, less than eight percent of the revenues generated by inmates and their families.
More than just a bus ticket and $50
Now, Corrections Secretary Ricky Dixon is seeking to restore the fund to its original purpose.
He said that 90% of Florida’s inmates will eventually wind up on the streets and that if his department does not adequately address inmate education and recidivism, it is not fully addressing its public safety mission.
“Each year, about 24,000 (inmates) are released from our system,” Dixon told a Tallahassee talk show host.
“Our public safety mission goes far beyond just the period of time that individuals are in our custody,” Dixon said on The Morning Show with Preston Scott. “It extends to their success upon release, and when they’re not successful, if they’re part of the 24% that recidivates: that comes back to prison within three years… there’s usually a victim or more victims associated with that return.”
Dixon said he wants the department to give inmates re-entering society a fighting chance and give them more than just a bus ticket and $50.
At press time, Senate Bill 7018 had cleared all committees and was scheduled for a second reading on the Senate floor. It would cap contributions to the Inmate Welfare Trust Fund at $32 million a year. House Bill 1219, scheduled for a third reading on the House floor, would raise the annual cap to $12.5 million.
