![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/ye-jinghan-T5roX1jajzU-unsplash-1-680x448.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Image by Ye Jinghan.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll be honest with you.<\/p>\n
Today I spent money I didn\u2019t have to spend, and I don\u2019t regret a single penny of it. I went to Apple TV and bought\u00a0The Alabama Solution (2025) even though I already have an HBO Max subscription where it streams for free. This film was Oscar-nominated for Best Documentary Feature, and it lost. It lost. I wrote about that on my Substack,\u00a0When The Oscars Looked Away, because that loss meant something. It meant that a film made by people who smuggled phones past guards who would\u2019ve killed them for it, a film that showed the world the deadliest prison system in America from the inside, wasn\u2019t deemed important enough for the most-watched awards show on the planet. So I bought it again. On purpose. Because some things deserve more than a stream.<\/p>\n
I served an 8.5-year bid inside the Florida Department of Corrections on a ten-year mandatory sentence. There\u2019s a difference. I know what it feels like to be a body in a system that sees you as a dollar sign or a data point. And watching\u00a0Alabama\u00a0did something to me. It made me realize that Alabama\u2019s under a microscope right now, but Florida? Florida is a black hole. Nobody\u2019s looking. And that\u2019s not an accident. Alabama\u2019s system is broken. Florida\u2019s system is a masterclass in cooking the books. And I\u2019ve got receipts.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll tell you something that happened just this week that says everything you need to know about how this system operates when it knows people are watching.<\/p>\n
On March 23rd I co-lectured with Dr. Kelly Vannan at Flagler College for the Lifelong Learning Institute. Yesterday, that same group visited Union Correctional Institution in Florida. They smelled freshly painted walls. They visited the death row area. They saw the chapel. They heard the officers say they run a tight ship, that they go out of their way to fix toilets and tend to the needs of their inmates. And they heard the phrase\u00a0We Never Walk Alone\u00a0a lot.<\/p>\n
A lot, lot.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll bet they did.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not going to tell you Union is a hellhole. I\u2019m not going to lie to you like that. I served an 8.5-year bid in Florida, and I know exactly what Union is. I know that the older inmates, the long-timers, the guys who\u2019ve been in the system long enough to know the difference, they want to transfer to Union. It\u2019s quieter. It\u2019s got senior dorms. For an older man trying to do his time without getting killed or be around the bullshit, Union is genuinely better than a lot of what Florida has to offer. I know that. I lived it.<\/p>\n
But here\u2019s what I also know. There isn\u2019t a single inmate at Union Correctional Institution who would\u2019ve had the fucking chance to do what the men in\u00a0The Alabama Solution\u00a0did. Pass a phone number. Whisper the truth to a reporter. Tell somebody on the outside what\u2019s actually happening. Not a chance. Not there.\u00a0Not in Florida. The officers who gave that tour knew exactly what they were doing. The freshly painted walls knew exactly what they were doing. What that group saw yesterday wasn\u2019t Union Correctional Institution. It was a Broadway show. A really good one. And I wasn\u2019t surprised, not for a single second when I heard their description sounded nothing like what I described to them on March 23rd.<\/p>\n
Not in the fucking least.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the entire point. That\u00a0is\u00a0Florida. Smoke and mirrors, front to back, top to bottom, every single time someone shows up with a clipboard or a camera or a group of well-meaning people from a lifelong learning program. The moment they know you\u2019re coming, the moment they can\u00a0control\u00a0what you see,\u00a0you aren\u2019t seeing a prison.\u00a0You\u2019re seeing a performance.<\/p>\n
Alabama got caught because nobody knew the cameras were coming.<\/p>\n
Florida, however,\u00a0never gets caught because Florida\u00a0never lets the cameras in.<\/p>\n
And as for\u00a0We Never Walk Alone. If you\u2019ve been on the inside, you already know exactly what that means. It\u2019s\u00a0not\u00a0a motto.\u00a0It\u2019s a warning.<\/p>\n
In Florida, the\u00a0most powerful and dangerous gang\u00a0doesn\u2019t wear colors. They wear badges. I\u2019m not being dramatic. The official Florida Department of Corrections slogan is\u00a0We Never Walk Alone, and I just told you\u00a0what that means. It\u2019s a code. It\u2019s a good old boy network that protects its own at any cost, and it\u2019s been doing so\u00a0for decades. In 2015, an investigation into a foiled murder plot revealed that three Florida prison guards were active members of the KKK. Three.\u00a0Active members. Guards. Sit with that for a second. Like,\u00a0really\u00a0fucking sit with that. That was just the case that got caught. Don\u2019t mistake 2015 for ancient history either. Officer misconduct, retaliatory transfers, and staff-sanctioned abuse kept surfacing in Florida Department of Corrections facilities well into the 2020s. The names change. The culture doesn\u2019t.\u00a0It never does.<\/p>\n
I was at Taylor Correctional Institution. And I want to tell you what I saw there with my own eyes and what I was told by the man it happened to directly.<\/p>\n
At night, through the dorm windows, you could see out beyond the wood line. And on more than one occasion, what you saw out there in the dark were crosses burning. Not rumor. Not prison legend. Crosses. On fire. In the woods\u00a0outside a Florida state correctional facility! I saw it. Other inmates saw it. And not one person in that institution acted like it was surprising.<\/p>\n
Not one.<\/p>\n
An inmate at Taylor told me personally that an officer had left a noose on his bed. He wasn\u2019t confused about what it meant. Nobody in that dorm was confused about what it meant, uh-uh. It meant exactly what it\u2019s always meant.\u00a0And nothing happened. No investigation. No termination. No accountability. Just another day inside the Florida Department of Corrections.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not the only one saying this. In 2015, three Florida Department of Corrections officers were caught on FBI recordings plotting to murder a Black inmate. They were KKK members. Active ones. They used a fellow corrections officer as an accomplice and an FBI informant posing as a Klan hitman to carry out the killing. They were convicted of first-degree murder conspiracy in 2017. Three. Uniformed.\u00a0Officers. A 2021 Associated Press investigation confirmed that white supremacist guards operate throughout Florida prisons with\u00a0what the reporter\u2019s called\u00a0impunity, that incident reports alleging officer misconduct are routinely buried by supervisors, and that the Inspector General\u2019s office\u00a0regularly\u00a0refuses to investigate. Officers at Jackson Correctional Institution were documented carrying noose keychains to intimidate Black inmates and colleagues. The state investigated.\u00a0They cleared every single one of them.<\/p>\n
Every single last fucking one.<\/p>\n
This is the system that tells you it\u2019s got a zero-tolerance policy for discrimination. This is the very system that tells you its inmates are the problem. This is the system that\u00a0burns crosses in the wood-line\u00a0at night and puts\u00a0nooses on beds in the morning\u00a0and calls it a correctional facility.<\/p>\n
What?<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s how the rest of the lie works.\u00a0They know they\u2019re lying. Every single one of them knows. They consciously align their stories so the official paperwork matches. Because in Florida, if the paperwork matches the story, then as far as the state\u2019s concerned, that\u2019s what happened.\u00a0Period.\u00a0It doesn\u2019t matter\u00a0what really went down. Uh-uh. It doesn\u2019t matter who saw it. The truth doesn\u2019t stand a chance against a\u00a0unified, written lie. I watched it happen. I lived inside it. Day after day\u00a0after day\u00a0after day.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s something that should stop you cold. The Florida Department of Corrections answers to itself. There\u2019s no independent oversight body with real sharp teeth\u00a0dripping blood sitting above them. No outside commission with subpoena power reviewing what happens\u00a0inside those walls on a daily basis. No civilian board that can walk into any facility unannounced\u00a0and demand answers. What exists instead is an internal affairs process\u00a0where the agency investigates itself, an Inspector General\u2019s office that has been documented repeatedly refusing to pursue complaints, and a reporting structure where\u00a0as long as the paperwork looks right, that is what happened. Full stop. What\u00a0in the\u00a0fuck. That\u2019s what gets handed up to their superiors.\u00a0That\u2019s\u00a0what gets read to the news anchor in whatever county the facility occupies.\u00a0That\u2019s the official record.<\/p>\n
Think about what that means in practice. An inmate dies. Officers write the report. Supervisors review the report. The Inspector General receives the report. If everyone\u2019s story matches,\u00a0the case closes. Nobody from the outside\u00a0ever sees the inside of that dorm. Nobody interviews\u00a0the inmates who were there. Nobody pulls the camera footage\u00a0that may or may not still exist. The paperwork\u00a0is the truth. The paperwork has always been the truth. And the people writing the paperwork\u00a0are the same people whose careers depend on the paperwork saying the right thing.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not a checks and balances system.\u00a0That\u2019s a closed loop. And it was built that way\u00a0on purpose.<\/p>\n
Fuck man, I have to give them credit. How diabolical is this system? Makes me want to scream.<\/p>\n
But it gets worse.<\/p>\n
The Florida Department of Corrections officially claims around 89,000 inmates. I call\u00a0bullllshit, like I\u2019ve mentioned before in different articles.\u00a0The state runs a constant shell game of transfers through five major distribution hubs. Washington Correctional Institution. Lake Butler Reception and Medical Center. Orlando CI. Miami-Dade CI.\u00a0Here\u2019s what the fuck they don\u2019t tell you.\u00a0On the day you get transferred, you aren\u2019t at your main facility. You might be on a bus. You might be in a holding cell. You might be sitting in a hub for days, weeks, or even months. And because you aren\u2019t physically in a cell at a specific facility during the morning census, you don\u2019t show up in the official occupancy counts. That\u2019s it.\u00a0That\u2019s the whole trick.\u00a0Crumbling, over-capacity prisons get to claim they\u2019re legally full-on paper while people are packed like sardines in reality. People think the prison system costs money.\u00a0That\u2019s exactly what they want you to believe.<\/p>\n
They want you\u00a0to get mad about it too.<\/p>\n
The Florida Department of Corrections runs on a $3.8 billion annual budget. It\u2019s the third-largest state prison system in the entire country. A 2023 report commissioned by the state itself found it\u2019ll cost Florida taxpayers between $6.3 billion and $11.8 billion over the next twenty years just to keep the facilities from falling apart. Nationally, mass incarceration generates over $445 billion a year when you count every piece of the machine.<\/p>\n
And I mean every piece.<\/p>\n
Private prison companies like GEO Group, CoreCivic, and Management and Training Corporation charge the state per body per bed. That\u2019s the contract. That\u2019s the language.\u00a0Not per rehabilitated person. Uh-uh.\u00a0Not a chance.\u00a0Not per successful reentry. Per body. Per bed. Which means an empty bed\u00a0is lost revenue. Which means keeping those beds full isn\u2019t just a priority, uh-uh,\u00a0it\u2019s a financial obligation to their shareholders. Collecting a combined $236 million\u00a0in Florida state funds every single year. Phone companies holding\u00a0monopoly contracts, and\u00a0isn\u2019t monopoly supposed to be illegal\u00a0in the United States, charging families outrageous rates just to hear their\u00a0son\u2019s or daughters voice. Just to hear him say\u00a0I love you. Fifteen minutes. Gone. And the state\u00a0gets a cut of every single call. Every\u00a0I love you\u2019s. Email fees. Video visit fees. Money transfer fees. Food service\u00a0companies billing the state for quality meals while serving documented rot. Healthcare contractors paid a flat rate per inmate per year\u00a0with every financial incentive to provide as little care as possible. Commissary vendors marking up a bar of soap three hundred percent\u00a0because the person buying it\u2019s got nowhere else to go. Construction companies.\u00a0Bond investors. Surveillance tech.\u00a0Drug testing labs. Electronic monitoring.\u00a0Every single one of them feeds off the same body.<\/p>\n
Pause.<\/p>\n
Sorry, I just threw up.<\/p>\n
And underneath all of it, inmate labor leased to private companies for pennies an hour.\u00a0Sometimes for nothing. While those companies\u00a0sell the finished product at full market price.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t a government expense.\u00a0This is an economy.\u00a0Boyyy,\u00a0does it\u00a0make some money. And the people\u00a0inside it\u00a0aren\u2019t just inmates.\u00a0They\u2019re assets.\u00a0They\u2019re profit. The longer the sentence, the more the machine makes. That\u2019s not a side effect. That\u2019s the\u00a0fucking point. That has\u00a0always\u00a0been the point.<\/p>\n
Florida law\u00a0guarantees\u00a0private prison companies\u00a0minimum occupancy payments. Bay Correctional Facility\u2019s contract literally\u00a0guarantees payment for 90% occupancy\u00a0whether the beds\u00a0are full or not.\u00a0Think about that. I know it\u2019s hard to process, but\u00a0please think about that. I implore you. The state is\u00a0contractually obligated to keep those beds filled. With people! That\u2019s not a corrections policy.\u00a0That\u2019s a financial incentive to warehouse human beings.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s PRIDE Enterprises, Florida\u2019s prison labor program, which generated $65.7 million in revenue in 2022\u00a0on the backs of people earning zero wages. Oh,\u00a0excuse me, 20 to 55 cents\u00a0per hour. Zero. The state\u2019s running\u00a0a multi-million dollar agricultural and industrial operation\u00a0on\u00a0unpaid labor\u00a0while\u00a0simultaneously guaranteeing\u00a0private companies\u00a0a profit for holding the workforce captive.<\/p>\n
You want to call it something? Call it what it is.\u00a0That is state-sponsored human trafficking.<\/p>\n
Holy smokes!<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the best magic trick every played on the American people.<\/p>\n
And don\u2019t even get me started on the immigration situation. You think the model that exists now is profitable? You may not even believe me now,\u00a0but when you hear those numbers you really wouldn\u2019t believe me then.<\/p>\n
Just a little peaky-boo.<\/p>\n
152 dollars\u00a0per person per day to detain an immigrant. Not rehabilitate. Not educate.\u00a0Detain.\u00a0ICE was holding 68,000 people as of February 2026, up from 40,000 the day Trump walked back into the White House. The goal is 100,000 beds.\u00a0One hundred thousand. GEO Group reported $2.6 billion in revenue in 2025. CoreCivic reported $2.2 billion.\u00a0Both posted record numbers. Both opened new facilities. The reconciliation package\u00a0allocated $45 billion to expand detention capacity over four years.\u00a0Forty-five\u00a0billion dollars. And alternatives to detention, electronic monitoring, cost less than $10 a day. But electronic monitoring\u00a0doesn\u2019t have shareholders. It doesn\u2019t have lobbyists. It doesn\u2019t\u00a0have contracts\u00a0guaranteeing occupancy.<\/p>\n
Now\u00a0do you believe me?<\/p>\n
Again,\u00a0call it what it is. That is\u00a0another round of\u00a0state-sponsored human trafficking.<\/p>\n
You know how we take down mob bosses? You know how we bring down\u00a0drug lords\u00a0and\u00a0cartel kingpins\u00a0and\u00a0organized crime networks\u00a0that have operated\u00a0for decades?\u00a0We\u00a0follow the money.\u00a0That\u2019s it.\u00a0That\u2019s always been it. You follow the money\u00a0and the truth has nowhere left to hide.<\/p>\n
Pause.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sorry,\u00a0my stomach\u00a0is really acting up here.<\/p>\n
I wonder what would happen if somebody\u00a0actually did that with the Florida Department of Corrections.<\/p>\n
Not the budget numbers they publish. Not the\u00a0annual report with the glossy cover.\u00a0I mean\u00a0really followed it. Every private prison contract. Every JPay transaction. Every commissary markup. Every food service invoice. Every medical contractor payment. Every phone call fee. Every money transfer cut. Every\u00a0bond issued\u00a0to build a new facility.\u00a0Every dollar\u00a0of inmate labor that went into a product\u00a0sold at full market price.\u00a0Every cent\u00a0that moved through PRIDE Enterprises\u00a0on the backs of people earning nothing.<\/p>\n
Damn,\u00a0watch out Jack!<\/p>\n
Follow all of it. Every single dollar from the moment it enters the system to the moment it lands in somebody\u2019s pocket.<\/p>\n
You want to know what they\u2019d find?\u00a0That\u2019s exactly why nobody\u2019s looking. Because the same people who would have to authorize that investigation\u00a0are the same people whose names are on the contracts.\u00a0That\u2019s\u00a0not a conspiracy theory.\u00a0That\u2019s just following the money to its logical conclusion.\u00a0And in Florida, that road leads straight back to Tallahassee every single time. And then where does it go?<\/p>\n
Ouchy.\u00a0I have a boo-boo.<\/p>\n
The mob would be impressed. They probably fucking are.\u00a0I\u2019m serious.\u00a0Who the fuck\u00a0do you think teaches drug cartels how to operate? The structure, the silence, the paperwork, the insulation from accountability. It\u2019s not sloppy. It\u2019s not accidental.\u00a0It\u2019s a machine\u00a0that was engineered by\u00a0people who understood exactly how to build something that couldn\u2019t easily be taken apart.<\/p>\n
Yeah,\u00a0I just threw up again.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re not a little nauseated right now,\u00a0you haven\u2019t been paying attention.<\/p>\n
And the most infuriating part? It\u2019s all legal.\u00a0Most of it anyway. That\u2019s the part\u00a0that should keep you up at night.<\/p>\n
The laws were\u00a0written this way\u00a0on purpose.<\/p>\n
And then there\u2019s the mail.<\/p>\n
Jeez, how much is there?<\/p>\n
In January 2022, the Florida Department of Corrections\u00a0banned physical mail\u00a0at all 128 of its facilities.\u00a0Every handwritten letter.\u00a0Every birthday card.\u00a0Every photograph\u00a0a mother sent to her son or daughter. All of it\u00a0is now intercepted, scanned by JPay, the\u00a0for-profit contractor\u00a0that also\u00a0controls the phones, the emails, the video visits, and the money transfers,\u00a0and delivered\u00a0as a digital copy on a tablet. Families\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0send stamps anymore. They\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0send greeting cards. The state\u2019s\u00a0official reason\u00a0was contraband reduction.\u00a0Missouri documented that overdose rates actually rose after implementing the exact same policy.<\/p>\n
So much for that argument.<\/p>\n
Florida\u2019s not even the worst offender anymore. As of early 2026, most prisoners in the United States\u00a0are barred from receiving physical mail as it was sent. Only fourteen states and Washington D.C.\u00a0still let a letter arrive as a letter.\u00a0Everyone else runs it through a scanner\u00a0owned by a company that charges fees at every step of the process.<\/p>\n
My god,\u00a0what next?<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a reason Bryce Courtenay made mail, letters, the written word, the ability to reach through a wall and touch someone you love, central to\u00a0The Power of One,\u00a0which,\u00a0fun fact, I read in prison\u00a0after my mom sent it to me. In apartheid South Africa\u2019s prisons, they understood that cutting off communication wasn\u2019t about safety.\u00a0It was about control. It was about\u00a0erasure. It was about\u00a0making a person disappear even while they were still breathing.<\/p>\n
We read that book and we call it\u00a0a tragedy.\u00a0We teach it in schools. Except now we\u2019re\u00a0banning books in schools too. Thousands of them.\u00a0All across this country. So I guess we\u2019re not even doing\u00a0that anymore. And then we do the same thing to people behind a fence and call it\u00a0contraband reduction.<\/p>\n
And if you want to visit someone inside a Florida prison,\u00a0you\u2019d better not have a record.\u00a0You\u2019d\u00a0better not be on probation. You\u2019d\u00a0better not have been incarcerated at the same facility within the last five years. Florida caps approved visitors at fifteen people total per inmate. Fifteen. If you\u2019re a felon,\u00a0you\u2019re likely disqualified.\u00a0Think about what that means in communities where incarceration has touched multiple generations of the same family. The people who love someone inside the most, the ones who grew up with them, did time themselves,\u00a0know the system from the inside out, are\u00a0systematically cut off from any ability to be there for them. Not because they\u2019re a threat.\u00a0Because a rule says so.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what I want you to think about.\u00a0The one form of communication\u00a0that used to cost absolutely nothing,\u00a0that required no account, no approved list, no login, no fee, was\u00a0a letter. A grandmother who\u00a0can\u2019t navigate a tablet app\u00a0could still reach\u00a0her grandson with a stamp and an envelope.\u00a0A kid\u00a0who wanted to send a drawing\u00a0to his dad\u00a0could do it\u00a0for free. That\u2019s gone now. Every single interaction between a person inside and the people who love them on the outside\u00a0now runs through a company taking a cut. And every barrier to that communication\u00a0is a barrier between the outside world and what\u2019s actually happening in there.\u00a0The fewer people with direct, unfiltered contact with someone on the inside,\u00a0the smaller the group of people who have any reason to demand change.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not an accident. That is the architecture of silence. And Florida\u00a0built it on purpose.<\/p>\n
Sorry, it gets worse.<\/p>\n
Florida recorded a record 428 in-custody deaths in 2017. A 20% spike\u00a0in a single year.\u00a0Inmates were\u00a0dying younger\u00a0than in any prior\u00a0recorded period. The Florida Department of Corrections responded with an internal investigation and a press release blaming, I swear to God, \u201ccomplex substance use disorders.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was their answer. A damn press release.<\/p>\n
But you\u2019ve got to go back to 2012 to really understand how deep this goes, and probably deeper than that. That year wasn\u2019t\u00a0an anomaly. It was\u00a0a window. The Florida Department of Corrections didn\u2019t\u00a0suddenly become corrupt\u00a0in 2012. The Miami Herald just\u00a0started looking. Which, those people are badass, and I wish Carl Hiaasen was still writing for them too.<\/p>\n
On June 23, 2012, a mentally ill man named Darren Rainey was serving\u00a0two years\u00a0for cocaine possession at Dade Correctional Institution. Two years.\u00a0For cocaine possession. Guards locked him in a\u00a0scalding shower\u00a0as punishment for\u00a0defecating in his cell. Fellow inmates said\u00a0he screamed for mercy for hours\u00a0while the guards\u00a0stood outside and taunted him. The shower was\u00a0so hot\u00a0it separated skin from his body. The Florida Department of Corrections ran its own internal investigation and went quiet. Miami-Dade homicide detectives weren\u2019t even brought in until 2014, when the Miami Herald was about to publish the story.<\/p>\n
Two years.<\/p>\n
They\u00a0freaking\u00a0waited two years.<\/p>\n
At Franklin Correctional Institution, inmate Randall Jordan-Aparo was originally ruled a death from\u00a0a rare blood disorder. Investigators went back in 2013\u00a0and found out\u00a0that corrections officers and supervisors\u00a0had covered up evidence and fabricated reports\u00a0to match the official story. He\u2019d been put in solitary and\u00a0repeatedly gassed by guards until he died. Gassed by Black Jesus, their name for it.\u00a0Until he died. And the paperwork said\u00a0blood disorder.<\/p>\n
Please,\u00a0no more.<\/p>\n
I was transferred to Suwannee Correctional Institution in July of 2012. This was Suwannee\u2019s\u00a0worst year for unexplained deaths. I was there. I know what that place felt like\u00a0in your chest\u00a0when you walked into it. Inmate Shawn Gooden, 33 years old, died\u00a0under mysterious circumstances the following year. There\u2019d been a riot in October 2013 that everyone inside understood was\u00a0a desperate reaction to what was being done to people in that facility.\u00a0The Florida Department of Law Enforcement arrested former Suwannee Correctional Institution officer Michael Dale Lindblade on charges of official misconduct. Officers Kiree Twiggs and Jo Ann Lopez were charged in 2015 with using excessive force on prisoners and then\u00a0falsifying the incident reports afterward.<\/p>\n
Falsifying. The reports. Afterward.<\/p>\n
Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the paperwork-matching behavior I just described. It isn\u2019t occasional. It\u2019s institutional.\u00a0It\u2019s the system working\u00a0exactly as designed.<\/p>\n
I want to tell you about a man I knew at Lake Butler when I worked in their hospital wrapping bodies and helping inmates. He went by Lupo.<\/p>\n
As I walk through the open double doors of the 2-East 3rd Bay, I\u2019m pushing a dust mop when I\u2019m stopped by this man in the first bed to my left. He\u2019s Latino, a Cuban. On the pound, he goes by Lupo. I find out later he has multiple life sentences. He\u2019s an old school chico from Miami and has the gold around his neck to prove it. I don\u2019t know how the police allowed it, but it says one thing. Lupo has money. A lot of money and power. Cash in prison is power, the same as any place in the world.<\/p>\n
There he is, all 230 pounds of him, wrapped snugly under thick, heavy hospital blankets. Lupo\u2019s shaved, bald head shines under the harsh fluorescent lights, and his puffy eyes are closed, giving him a deceptively peaceful look. His pale Cuban skin tells the story of a man who hasn\u2019t felt the sun\u2019s warmth in a very long time.<\/p>\n
Looking more closely, I know he\u2019s all messed up. His closed eyes and peaceful breathing look rougher and more haggard, pained even. As I pass him, pushing my dust mop, his eyes remain shut, but his lips part slightly and he whispers\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cHey, Permanent.\u201d<\/p>\n
I turn and face him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHermano, bro, will you please help me, man? I cannot feel my leg, yo. It must be asleep or something.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course I say, \u201cSure, bro, I got you. Which leg is it?\u201d<\/p>\n
His legs are hidden under more than a few blankets, the outline of what I assume are his limbs barely visible beneath the fabric.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the left one, homie. Please, yo. It hurts really bad.\u00a0Mierda.\u201d<\/p>\n
As I move toward him, all I\u2019m thinking about is my job. I help inmates in the hospital or wrap them up and close the freezer door after placing their dead bodies inside of it. So, it\u2019s nothing to me when I reach for his left leg. I grab the edge of the blanket, ready to pull it back, but Lupo stops me.<\/p>\n
\u201cNah,\u00a0hermano, just lift it. It\u2019s too cold to take the blanket off.\u201d<\/p>\n
I nod. Whatever, dude.<\/p>\n
My hands move to where his left thigh is, fingers curling to grip his solid limb. But as I start to lift, my hands close on nothing but air. The blanket sinks, following the shape of the mattress rather than a leg. I can barely grasp what happened. A \u201cwhat the fuck\u201d escapes my mouth as the imaginary leg seems to disintegrate and vanish under my touch.<\/p>\n
\u201cHAHAHAHAHAJAJAJA.\u201d Lupo\u2019s laughing his ass off as he says, \u201cHermano, yo, I ain\u2019t got no leg!\u201d cackling to himself.<\/p>\n
It turns out Lupo\u2019s a diabetic with a huge honey bun addiction. He trades his morphine pills for honey buns slathered with icing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI ain\u2019t got no leg, hahahahaha,\u201d he says again.<\/p>\n
After I manage to scrape together some measure of composure, I turn around in a daze. He shows me the bloody stump. The leg was freshly cut off a couple days prior at an outside hospital.<\/p>\n
The same guy, about eight months later, will ask me again to help him move his other leg and prank me again. His other leg was cut off, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cHahahahahahahaha, I ain\u2019t got NOOOOO legs homie, hahahahahahaha,\u201d Lupo says as he kicks both stumps up and down, laughing hysterically.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m glad to see he has such a positive attitude about having no legs.<\/p>\n
This time, I laugh with him. I\u2019m in on the joke. The joke\u2019s no longer on me; it\u2019s on life.<\/p>\n
Lupo\u2019s demise came from K-2, a dangerous synthetic drug often called \u201cSpice\u201d or \u201csynthetic marijuana.\u201d\u00a0K-2 is made from chemicals sprayed onto plant material. It can cause unpredictable and deadly reactions such as rapid heart rate, seizures, heart attacks, kidney failure, and sometimes sudden death. Nobody ever really knows what\u2019s in a batch until it\u2019s too late.<\/p>\n
He smoked it and his heart blew up.<\/p>\n
End of Lupo.<\/p>\n
His story isn\u2019t unique.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the story of what the Florida Department of Corrections\u2019\u00a0drug economy\u00a0does to people. And it\u2019s a story the state has spent a lot of\u00a0money\u00a0and\u00a0effort\u00a0making sure you never hear.<\/p>\n
Before I go further, I need to say something and\u00a0I need to mean it.\u00a0I always try to give a shout out to the officers.\u00a0Always.\u00a0Because I know what most people don\u2019t. I know that we\u2019re all in there together, inmate and officer alike, just trying to survive the same damn world from different sides of the same door.<\/p>\n
There are amazing corrections officers in the Florida Department of Corrections. I met them.\u00a0I know they exist, they are not just rumors. Officers who looked at you like a human being. Who knew, on some level they\u2019d never say out loud, that the line between them and the man in the prison blues was thinner than most people on the outside would ever believe. Officers who were fair. Who were decent. Who did a fucked-up job with some measure of dignity and went home and tried to leave it at the gate.<\/p>\n
Think about what that job\u00a0actually is. Twelve-hour shifts. Locked inside the same walls as the people you\u2019re guarding. Half your career, if you make it to retirement, is spent being incarcerated\u00a0right alongside us. I\u2019m sure that irks a lot of officers. They just get to go home at the end of their shift.\u00a0Most of the time.\u00a0The desensitization that happens to an inmate over years?\u00a0It happens to the officers too.\u00a0It has to. You cannot witness what goes on inside those facilities day after day, year after year, and stay the same person you were when you walked in for the first time. Uh-uh. That world changes everyone it touches.<\/p>\n
Everyone.<\/p>\n
And here\u2019s something else that doesn\u2019t get said enough. Most of these officers are regular citizens trying to earn a paycheck and support their families.\u00a0That\u2019s it.\u00a0That\u2019s the whole story for a lot of them. They took a state job with benefits because they needed one.\u00a0They didn\u2019t sign up to be part of a corrupt system. At least I hope they didn\u2019t. And when the system around them is rotten,\u00a0staying clean inside it\u00a0takes a kind of courage that most people\u00a0will never be tested on.<\/p>\n
So,\u00a0shout out to y\u2019all.<\/p>\n
The truth is that what happens inside a prison stays inside a prison on both sides of the badge. The officer doesn\u2019t go home and tell his wife what\u00a0he saw in the shower block that afternoon. The inmate doesn\u2019t call his mother and describes what\u00a0he watched happen in the dorm at count.\u00a0You experience it and\u00a0you carry it alone. Because you can\u2019t explain it to someone\u00a0who hasn\u2019t lived it.\u00a0But I will try. The words don\u2019t translate. The world\u00a0in there\u00a0and the world\u00a0out here\u00a0don\u2019t speak the same language.<\/p>\n
There are good people and bad people everywhere. Good inmates and bad inmates. Good officers and bad officers. Good staff and corrupt staff. That\u2019s not a prison thing. That\u2019s a life thing. It\u2019s everywhere.\u00a0It\u2019s always been everywhere. What matters is who we truly are. What we do with the life we\u2019ve been given.\u00a0How we make it count.\u00a0Most people,\u00a0inmate or officer, are all just trying to get through the day and do right by the people we love. I believe that. I\u2019ve always believed that.<\/p>\n
But I also know there are\u00a0really bad ones. Like a fucking cancer. Officers who shouldn\u2019t be\u00a0within a hundred miles of that kind of power\u00a0over another human being.\u00a0Just like there are\u00a0inmates\u00a0who make it\u00a0dangerous and impossible for everyone around them. That\u2019s the reality too and I\u2019m not going to pretend otherwise.<\/p>\n
What I\u2019m writing about isn\u2019t the individual standing in that dorm at count. It\u2019s the machine that put him there and then\u00a0left him to either survive it or become it. The institution protects itself.\u00a0Not the officers. Not the inmates. Itself. And that\u2019s what\u00a0has to change.<\/p>\n
Now here\u2019s the part that should make every person in Tallahassee\u00a0deeply uncomfortable.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ll hear the Florida Department of Corrections say that drugs come in through visitation. That\u2019s the official story.\u00a0It\u2019s also mostly a lie. Ask anyone who\u2019s actually been inside. The people who primarily bring drugs into Florida prisons are\u00a0officers and staff.\u00a0It\u2019s a business.\u00a0It\u2019s always been a business. And it got a massive turbo boost in late 2011 when the Florida Department of Corrections\u00a0removed tobacco\u00a0from the canteen.<\/p>\n
Think about what that decision did overnight. A pack of cigarettes that cost a few bucks on the street suddenly became worth\u00a0hundreds of dollars behind the fence. A single cigarette could be traded for stamps, food, favors, protection. The math was right there in front of every officer walking through those gates every single morning. The ban didn\u2019t end the tobacco trade.\u00a0It exploded it. And it moved the whole operation entirely into the hands of the people\u00a0with the keys.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s not just tobacco. Corrections officers are selling cell phones to inmates for\u00a0thousands of dollars apiece.\u00a0One phone inside a Florida prison can go for anywhere between\u00a0one and five thousand dollars\u00a0depending on the facility and how bad someone needs it. But don\u2019t picture cash changing hands in a dark hallway. Uh-uh. This isn\u2019t the movies. The transaction happens through MoneyGram, Cash App, Venmo, prepaid debit cards, and whatever else puts enough distance between\u00a0a name\u00a0and\u00a0a dollar amount. The money hits an outside account first. Once it clears, the phone gets delivered. Clean. Hard to trace. Almost\u00a0impossible\u00a0to connect back to the officer who set it up. And let\u2019s be real, they\u00a0may\u00a0allow an inmate to\u00a0talk them into it.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t a few bad apples doing something reckless. This is an\u00a0organized operation. And the Florida Department of Corrections built every single condition that made it possible.<\/p>\n
Then K-2 hit the system, and it changed everything. Synthetic marijuana came in and replaced the weed market almost overnight because it was\u00a0harder to detect on a drug test and easier to smuggle. What nobody told the public was what K-2 actually does to a person. It doesn\u2019t mellow you out. It can make someone stab their best friend over nothing. It causes psychotic breaks, seizures, cardiac events. It kills people.\u00a0It killed Lupo.\u00a0And the Florida Department of Corrections, which controls every single item that enters those facilities, was either\u00a0letting it happen\u00a0or so\u00a0catastrophically incapable of stopping it\u00a0that the result was the same.<\/p>\n
Neither answer is okay.<\/p>\n
Then add\u00a0Subutex\u00a0and\u00a0Suboxone\u00a0into that mix. Medications used on the outside for legitimate opioid treatment that Florida\u2019s prisons largely refused to offer their own inmates, which didn\u2019t stop those same medications from flooding the compound anyway. A single strip\u00a0was worth a fortune. Officers brought them in. Inmates found ways to smuggle them in too, at an alarming rate. And the damn state, which had\u00a0access to every overdose number\u00a0climbing inside its own facilities,\u00a0kept issuing press releases\u00a0about the complex substance use disorders of its inmates\u00a0instead of investigating the supply chain running straight through its own employees.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what nobody in Tallahassee wants to say out loud.\u00a0Florida corrections officers are overworked, understaffed, and chronically underpaid for one of the most psychologically fucked jobs in the state.\u00a0They go home stressed and stretched thin and quietly furious at a system that\u00a0burns through them\u00a0as efficiently\u00a0as it burns through the inmates. And then they come back the next morning and the temptation\u2019s just sitting right there. An inmate with family money on the outside who desperately needs a phone to hear his kid\u2019s voice. A pack of tobacco worth three hundred dollars, or more.\u00a0A strip of Suboxone that takes a second to slide into a pocket.\u00a0The Florida Department of Corrections\u00a0created every single one of these conditions. It refuses to address the pay crisis and the staffing crisis driving the behavior,\u00a0and then it turns around and points at the inmates\u00a0when the contraband economy\u00a0it built falls into public view.<\/p>\n
Yes, inmates are ingenious. I know that better than most. People find ways to survive and build economies out of nothing because that\u2019s what human beings do when they\u2019re desperate and resourceful at the same time. But the idea that tobacco, K-2, cell phones, and prescription opioids are pouring into over a hundred facilities because of\u00a0inmate ingenuity alone\u00a0isn\u2019t just a lie.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an insult to every person who\u2019s lived inside those walls\u00a0and watched the deposit clear before the package moved.<\/p>\n
Lupo wasn\u2019t a statistic.\u00a0He was a man with a laugh that could fill a hospital bay.\u00a0He was\u00a0also a number\u00a0the Florida Department of Corrections filed under\u00a0natural causes,\u00a0or just\u00a0fucking pending.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve tried to compare Florida\u2019s death numbers to Texas, California, New York, Alabama, and North Carolina. I\u2019ve tried. Every researcher who\u2019s attempted the same thing hits the\u00a0exact same wall. And here\u2019s\u00a0why\u00a0that wall exists and\u00a0why\u00a0it was built.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no standardized national definition of an in-custody death.\u00a0Every state self-reports to the Bureau of Justice Statistics under the Death in Custody Reporting Act.\u00a0But the law has\u00a0no\u00a0enforcement mechanism.\u00a0States that don\u2019t report face no penalty. Nothing. Yeah, that\u2019s right. Florida\u2019s among the states with the worst history of late, incomplete, and pending filings. When a death\u2019s under investigation, it doesn\u2019t get finalized in the official statistics\u00a0until the case closes. Some of those investigations drag on for years. Some of them\u00a0never close. In 2023, Florida recorded 346 inmate deaths. More than half, one hundred and seventy-six of them,\u00a0had no cause of death listed at all.<\/p>\n
More than fifty percent. Unexplained or pending investigation.<\/p>\n
Ask yourself\u00a0why.<\/p>\n
Like,\u00a0how in the fuck\u00a0is this at all possible?<\/p>\n
What Florida calls a natural cause, another state calls illness linked to inadequate medical care. What one state records as suicide, another records as undetermined. Overdoses get reclassified as natural causes\u00a0during pending investigations all the time.\u00a0Deaths at private facilities run by GEO Group and CoreCivic get reported to the state\u00a0sometimes, to the federal government\u00a0sometimes,\u00a0and\u00a0sometimes\u00a0to nobody. County jail deaths get counted separately from prison deaths in some states and\u00a0bundled together in others.<\/p>\n
The Marshall Project analyzed the Justice Department\u2019s own in-custody death dataset and found that nearly\u00a0one-third of all jail death records\u00a0had no cause of death listed whatsoever. In more than one-third of cases, the listed cause of death did not fucking match what was written\u00a0in the description field of the same record. The official classification contradicted the\u00a0actual fucking circumstances of the death. In the same dataset, the most commonly listed manner of death across all American jails wasn\u2019t homicide. It wasn\u2019t suicide. It wasn\u2019t overdose. It was this:\u00a0unavailable, investigation pending.\u00a0And at least 681 deaths were missing from the federal count\u00a0entirely. Not miscategorized. Not pending.\u00a0Gone.<\/p>\n
The UCLA Law COVID Behind Bars database\u00a0found that in 2020 alone, at least 6,182 people\u00a0died\u00a0in U.S. prisons. That\u2019s a 46%\u00a0increase\u00a0from 2019. In a year when the prison population\u00a0dropped 10%.<\/p>\n
Are you\u00a0fucking kidding me?<\/p>\n
The comparison problem isn\u2019t a research limitation.\u00a0It\u2019s a design feature.\u00a0Every\u00a0state that classifies deaths differently,\u00a0every\u00a0private facility that files its own paperwork,\u00a0every\u00a0natural cause stamped onto a suspicious death certificate is another brick in the same wall,\u00a0Pink Fucking Floyd, making the true number impossible to calculate, impossible to compare, and\u00a0impossible to prosecute.<\/p>\n
That wall didn\u2019t build itself.<\/p>\n
Yep, we have a real problem.<\/p>\n
I want\u00a0every reader to do something. Pull Florida\u2019s official death statistics from the Florida Department of Corrections website. Then pull the medical examiner records from Alachua, Marion, and Polk counties, some of the counties where the largest facilities operate.\u00a0Look at both numbers. What you find in the gap between them\u00a0is the real story.\u00a0And then research the entire panhandle of Florida. Throw in Union County, where Reception and Medical Center sits, the facility every man entering the Florida DOC passes through first. Throw in Suwannee,\u00a0for shits and giggles. The FBI did.<\/p>\n
Spoiler.<\/p>\n
It\u2019ll show who\u00a0controls the pen.<\/p>\n
The DOC writes its own numbers. The medical examiners, when they get access at all, write different ones. And the private contractors who employed the doctors who\u00a0signed the certificates\u00a0spent years in court\u00a0arguing nobody had the right to see them.<\/p>\n
The paragraph I wrote isn\u2019t a research prompt.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s\u00a0a trap.<\/p>\n
And any reader who follows those instructions\u00a0will\u00a0spring it themselves.<\/p>\n
And ask yourself this.\u00a0Alabama had whistleblowers with contraband phones. Why hasn\u2019t that happened in Florida? Retaliatory transfers, solitary confinement, and the loss of gain time are the answers\u00a0they\u2019ll give you in public. Those of us who got out of the Florida Department of Corrections\u00a0alive\u00a0know the silence runs a lot deeper than paperwork.\u00a0But in Florida, you can\u2019t prove what you can\u2019t live to report.<\/p>\n
If you want to see the darkest corner of this entire system, look\u00a0at Lowell Correctional Institution.\u00a0It\u2019s the\u00a0largest women\u2019s prison\u00a0in the country and it\u2019s a nightmare by design.\u00a0Not by accident. Not by neglect.\u00a0By design. A U.S. Department of Justice report revealed over a decade of systemic\u00a0sexual abuse, including rape and\u00a0extortion by staff, that the institution\u2019s own leadership knew about and buried.\u00a0In Ocala\u2019s brutal summers,\u00a0pregnant women\u00a0have lived in dorms\u00a0hitting 115 degrees with no air conditioning.\u00a0For\u00a0years the state knew\u00a0the drinking water at Lowell was contaminated\u00a0with hazardous chemicals and let those women keep drinking it anyway.<\/p>\n
Lowell isn\u2019t an outlier. Uh-uh. It\u2019s the\u00a0logical conclusion of a system built on secrecy, impunity, and profit.<\/p>\n
I wrote\u00a0COUNT TIME\u00a0to close the gap between those of us who\u00a0survived this system\u00a0and the people on the outside who only see the Florida Department of Corrections\u2019\u00a0polished press releases. Every chapter in this piece is a human being. Every loophole is a deliberate choice made by someone\u00a0who knows better. Lupo was one of those human beings. And there are others, men whose names are already part of the public record, men whose deaths became headlines,\u00a0whose cases became lawsuits, whose stories got told\u00a0because someone on the outside finally paid attention. My book is about the ones\u00a0nobody paid attention to. And it\u2019s about finding the keys to your own prison. My stories, you may not relate to them directly.\u00a0But they\u2019ll make you think. Because underneath all of it,\u00a0we are all just people who want to be happy. That part isn\u2019t a prison story.\u00a0That part is yours too.<\/p>\n
And I want to be clear about something. This is only the tip of the iceberg. I only shared what I thought people might be able to\u00a0stomach in one sitting.<\/p>\n
Support\u00a0The Alabama Solution. Buy it, watch it, share it. But then turn your eyes toward Florida. Because the solution isn\u2019t just a movie title. It\u2019s something we\u2019ve got to fight for,\u00a0loudly and without stopping, for the 89,000 souls the state\u00a0admits\u00a0are still trapped in the dark,\u00a0and\u00a0for every single one\u00a0they aren\u2019t counting.<\/p>\n
If you want to do something, follow the Florida Justice Institute at fji.law. Follow the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida\u2019s National Prison Project. Follow the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition. And if you\u2019ve been inside the Florida Department (hell) of Corrections, I want to hear from you. Inmate or officer. Reply to this post or reach out directly. Your story matters.\u00a0Even if you\u2019ve never been to prison before. Your voice matters. Your comments matter.\u00a0Your light matters.<\/p>\n
It always\u00a0has.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Image by Ye Jinghan. I\u2019ll be honest with you. Today I spent money I didn\u2019t have to spend,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-288616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}