FL County to Introduce New Re-entry System
The head of Florida’s prison system has a new vision for inmates’ re-entry into society: doing far more than just dropping them off at midnight at a bus station.
Department of Corrections Secretary Walter McNeil envisions beginning three years before an inmate’s release by moving him or her to prisons in their home communities, reintroducing them slowly and involving their families.
His goal? Not to “hug thugs,” he said, but to reduce recidivism and buttress public safety. “So they don’t go out and victimize other citizens,” McNeil said.
McNeil is on a tour of Florida, spreading his ideas. On Wednesday, he met with The Palm Beach Post editorial board along with Public Defender Carey Haughwout, whose office represents the county’s burgeoning indigent population charged with crimes.
It’s a fact that about 88 percent of the 102,000 people currently in Florida prisons will be released. Current recidivism rates are at 33 percent, meaning 1 in 3 will return to prison within three years of release.
To reduce that rate, McNeil wants to better prep them. He’s working to create “portal entry” centers where felons can register as they are required to do, but also staffed with people from social service agencies and faith-based programs to help them.
For Palm Beach County, the Department of Corrections envisions a prison for soon-to-be-released inmates established at the site of the former Sago Palm juvenile center in Pahokee. McNeil said Wednesday he hopes it is operational by the fall, and will house all inmates except those in “close” custody – generally those convicted of the most violent crimes.
When inmates are released, the DOC staff will drive them to a portal entry center, potentially located in the Westgate neighborhood in suburban West Palm Beach.
Haughwout praised the vision of McNeil, a former police chief of Tallahassee appointed DOC secretary by Gov. Charlie Crist in 2008. McNeil has prioritized re-entry, creating a designated office for it and partnering with community leaders to plan it.
Haughwout said one her chief frustrations in 27 years of practicing as a criminal defense lawyer is the lack of preparation to return the offender to society.
She told a story of a recently released inmate she saw at the jail, who was trying to register as a felon as he was required to do. The former inmate was told he was in the wrong place and would have to go to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office stockade by the South Florida Fairgounds, but he had spent his last money traveling to the jail.
His temper flared, the staff’s temper flared and he was promptly re-arrested, she said.
“He was such a picture of the people getting out of prison,” Haughwout said.
With the sheriff’s budget tighter than ever – with $25 million in cuts this year and programs for at-risk teens and drug addicts set to be shuttered – McNeil said he plans to cover costs by reallocating what he already has.
While Haughwout likes McNeil’s ideas, she emphasized it’s not a trade-off for the sheriff to close one program for kids while a state agency opens one for adults.
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