|
|
| Equal treatment could be critical to inmates’ futures |
| By observernews.net - Melody Jameson |
| Published: 04/05/2012 |
|
BALM – As the Hillsborough Correctional Institution here is being mothballed over the outspoken objections of inmates, volunteers and legislators, a supportive but thin legal thread remains untied down. It came out of an attempt to forestall the closure by Florida’s Department of Corrections with a court-ordered injunction initiated by an inmate and filed by a sympathetic Tallahassee attorney. A Leon County circuit court judge denied the injunction plea but left the door open to a possible, eventual declaratory judgment based on an equal treatment argument. That argument, however, can be returned to the courtroom only by some of the women prisoners relocated to the Lowell Reception Center, a new section of the massive Lowell correctional complex near Ocala. And they must experience life at Lowell in order to make it. In the meantime, several inmates of Florida’s first faith-based, character-building prison for women with a remarkably low recidivism rate and a volunteer base of mentors or teachers numbering in the hundreds, shared their reflections with The Observer. Patsy Mae Caksackkar, like hundreds of others, tried in February to persuade Gov. Rick Scott and Ken Tucker, acting secretary for the state corrections system, of HCI’s importance. She related how she arrived at HCI nearly three years ago, coming from Lowell C.I. in a wheelchair “emotionally and physically crippled.” Today, she said, in HCI “I have recovered. I can walk and I contribute daily…” That recovery she attributed to the encouragement of “being treated with respect” as a human being by staff on the HCI compound, regaining “my identity” and a renewed sense of self worth. She referred to the 22 certificates she earned at HCI upon completing a number of classes. At Lowell, she added, she could take just five classes during more than seven years there. She pointed to “512 volunteers and mentors” at HCI, noting “I only knew eight volunteers at Lowell.” In that facility, she stated, “you lose your self-esteem and no one is there to help you.” It may not be a “perfect world,” she concluded “but this (HCI) is a perfect program for these women.” Shelli Stone was raised in a single-parent household, surrounded by a substantial, loving family after her father’s death when she was five years old, she said. But, at 17 she was pregnant. Yet, by her 18th birthday she had finished high school and was enrolled in a community college. Then, she inherited a $40,000 lump sum. It opened the door to “the party lifestyle,” addiction to ecstasy and heroin, check forgery and grand theft, she admitted. And, in May, 1998, Shelli Stone, driving a stolen vehicle, was involved in a high speed chase ending in a crash that killed a sheriff’s deputy and her own passenger. She survived to get a 34-year sentence for multiple counts, including vehicular homicide. Read More. |
Comments:
Login to let us know what you think
MARKETPLACE search vendors | advanced search
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
|
He has blue eyes. Cold like steel. His legs are wide. Like tree trunks. And he has a shock of red hair, red, like the fires of hell. His antics were known from town to town as he was a droll card and often known as a droll farceur. Hamilton Lindley with his madcap pantaloon is a zany adventurer and a cavorter with a motley troupe of buffoons.