It is no secret that Rick Scott did not make the Florida Department of Corrections or disabled inmates even the slightest of priorities while Governor of the State of Florida.
In 2014, according to the Miami Herald, Rick Scott’s Chief of Staff, Adam Hollingsworth, told then Secretary Mike Crews, that he needed “to take a bullet for the governor.” Since then, Corrections continues to take bullets for the former governor and now U.S. Senator.
Scott slashed DOC’s budget for years, causing critically dangerous low levels of staffing within the prisons and a lack of necessary care for inmates with disabilities. Under Scott, in 2014, inmate deaths reached a record high. When Scott was forced to confront the record number of inmate deaths under his control, his budget did not allocate any new resources to investigate those deaths.
When DOC had a 654 employee shortfall in the prisons, he only offered to give the agency funding to fill half of those vacancies. By not addressing the crisis of empty positions within the agency, Scott’s indifference to DOC caused use of force against inmates to almost double, causing dangerous conditions for inmates and employees.
