PRISONERS
OF PROFIT
food he called “inedible.”
That same year, local public
defenders asked another judge to
move children from Pahokee into
a less punitive program. Followup reviews by state-contracted
auditors confirmed the operation
was dysfunctional.
One youth with unpaid prison
gambling debts had been so severely beaten by three others
that he required surgery to have
HUFFINGTON
11.03.13
rats and mice scurrying from the
fields. The reviews said the facility wasn’t paying enough for pest
control to manage the influx. A
special state monitoring report
from October 1998 found medical records showing “instances
of youth being bitten by spiders
and rodents.”
Monitors from the state also
found that Correctional Services
Corp. officials were holding youth
In order to get enough food, youth are allowed to
gamble through card games and sports bets while
trading “picks” — the right to take someone else’s
food at the next meal.
his spleen removed. In a separate
incident, four staff members, including two managers, allowed
two boys who had a disagreement
to fight for nearly 10 minutes as
they stood by and watched. No
one reported the incident, and no
one took the boys to see a nurse.
Sugarcane farmers in that part
of Florida burn their crops to
make them easier to harvest during the summer and fall, sending
past their scheduled release dates
[