By james art 
The prisoners use one word to describe life in the walls of prisons in Florida: Paying.
The formation of food, improper portions similar to sauna temperatures in cells and others causes prisoners to feel that their lives are unbearable.
Complaints of their quality of life come just weeks after the inspections shone on the terrible conditions that struck Florida’s prison system, but prisoners say that these problems existed long before reports were published – and the state -deprived of change.
Inhuman residential environments and non -as -asdinial food options are only part of the main pitfalls discovered by individual investigations by the state and federal prison systems in Florida.
“It’s pretty bad here and I was in some bad places,” says Alexander Curry, a 2013 prisoner, who is currently in the Florida State Prison.
Florida prisoners hoped that reports will start upgrading.
Talahassi’s democrat randomly chose a handful of prisoners in state institutions throughout the country from the list of prisoners’ institutions and received answers from prisoners currently being held in Madison, Lowell, Union, Colombia and Souwan institutions and the Florida State Prison. The prisoners corresponded via JPay, an electronic communications system that serves the prison system in the country.
The Florida Ministry of Correction did not deny or confirm the conditions affecting over 80,000 prisoners placed in 143 facilities when Democrat Talahasi asked for a comment. The department explained only the provisions and stated that they met the standards.
“No one should sleep like this”
The clining-which Floridians consider it a necessity-is considered a luxury for thousands of prisoners throughout the country.
Conditions vary an institution for an institution, but KPMG, the company, which the FDC hired, to create a prison system “Master Plan”, tells the legislators that 75% of all residential units have no air -conditioning units.
The company estimates that it will require between $ 6.3 billion and $ 11.9 billion dollars to taxpayers to renovate the destroying buildings over the next 20 years.
FDC said the newer institutions have air conditioning, but those that do not have “some form of climate control for mitigation of heat, such as fans or exhaust systems that create a high level of air exchange for cooling the building.”
“Each institution is audited and compatible with the Standards of the US Correction Association on ventilation and HVAC systems,” the FDC said.
The Medison Correctional Institution has no air -conditioning wards, said Giulio Rivera, a prisoner whose interview was translated from Spanish, only fans of exhaust gases that force the rooms.
“The cells of two people do not have adequate ventilation and in the summer look like a sauna,” says 48-year-old Rivera, sentenced to life imprisonment for murder and abduction of first degree.
There are heaters for the winter months, he said, but he is hit or missed if they work.
Marvin Jones, a 2013 prisoner, who is currently in the Suwannee correctional institution, has lived in many places, but the experience is relatively the same, he said.
The correctional institution of the lake had no air or working fans of the exhaust gases, so the hostels became “extremely hot”, says 33-year-old Jones, who was sentenced to 30 years for a second-degree murder and an aggravated attack. The Avon Park corrective institution has no airflow, windows or fire sprays.
“I have been in many prisons, but the State Prison in Florida is the oldest offender of structural crimes and human rights violations,” Jones said.
Some buildings in the Lowell Correctional Institution do not have air conditioning, causing a growing mold on the walls and showers, said Linda Wright, a prisoner since 1999, who is currently in the institution.
Some of the state prisons have been working since the beginning of 1900, and the deteriorating amenities begin to show the age of buildings.
The bigger part of Lowell’s population did not receive new mattresses, said Wright, 71 -year -old, who was sentenced to life imprisonment for aggravated battery and cocaine sale. The mattresses are so flat, she said that they have to push the stuffing on one side, because otherwise it is like sleeping on metal.
“This then gives you only half a mattress,” Wright said. “No one should sleep like that.”
The open population of the Union’s correctional institution has air conditioning, but Death Row No, said Richard Elbert, a 2014 prisoner, who is currently in the institution. The summer conditions in the death of death are “sinking and deplorable,” he said, and prisoners sleep in their sweat.
59-year-old Elbert, who was sentenced to 40 years in prison for burglary, said he even woke up in a pool of his own sweat in the air-conditioned ward.
“Knowing that yourself will die in the hand of a person, at any moment, is enough to have to endure,” he said. “They also should not tolerate sweating all day and night!”
Insufficiently prepared and unlawal
The FCI Tallahassee, one of the eight federal institutions in Florida, made national titles after the Federal Club Bureau released a report on summer inspections in early November. Inspectors find that prisoners are served molding and rotting foods, as well as the presence of rats disposal and insect infection in food storage units.
While the surprise check was only in the federal prison nestled in the country’s capital, prisoners say state institutions are experiencing such realities.
Curry said that food is almost never prepared properly in Florida.
“The menu is not respected and when it is, parts are almost never enough for a grown -up person,” he said. “Not to mention dirty trays and food prepared for one person, especially what we claim to be the most civilized nation in the world.”
The portions of food in Lowell are also getting smaller, Wright said, and accommodation for people with diseases such as diabetes do not receive adequate diet trays.
“The prisoners are hungry,” she said. “And food is always cold, bread everywhere.”
36 -year -old Aaron Bekworth, a 2021 prisoner, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for moving with deadly weapons and a great theft, said they never receive what they have on the menu and the food trays were flooded in the correctional institution Suwannee. Before he was moved there, he was housed in the Hardy correctional institution, where he said the conditions were the same.
Prisons are spinning a four -week -old main menu of the cycle, FDC said. The menu features suggestions, vegetables, cooked dried grains and desserts, and with each meal, alternative meat -free options are offered.
“The menu is designed to meet the calorie requirements, reviewed by a registered nutritionist and provides an average of 2762 calories a day,” FDC said.
Elbert said food and air conditioning problems in the Union are the most important. “Otherwise, the living conditions are reasonable here, I will not complain,” Elbert said.
Big rats are spotted in the porridge hall, he said, and the food is so undesirable that prisoners often throw it away instead of eating it.
The prisoners in the Union serve “the so -called meat patties, which were sentenced by the doctor years ago,” he said. They received a new food supplier but served “the same garbage that was terminated”.
“Whatever it is, it can’t be healthy,” Elbert said.
Madison prisoners are also served patties almost every day, sometimes twice a day, which Rivera says are made up of chicken and textured vegetable protein.
He said he had a 4-week menu that was approved, but “the food is just terrible.”
The friends and family of prisoners can provide them with small sums of money to buy an assortment of things in small shops that work in prisons, but prices are “extremely expensive” and the options are just as terrible, he said.
A three -ounce package is $ 1.06, a Cherry sleeve is $ 2.80, and a six -ounce bag is $ 7, he said.
“As always, the promises of more and better food seemed incredible,” Rivera said. “After all, they were the same – lies and false promises.”
Elena Barrera can be found at [email protected]. Follow it on x @elenabarreraaaS
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Florida prisoners plead for a change in the background of “lazy” prison conditions