This came with a raft of mailers both for and against Rick Scott. By the way, it's hard to tell whether an anti-so-in-so message is really "anti" anymore because politics has become so convoluted. Note here that the above glossy 6 X 10.5 inch fold out mailer was sent to our -all registered Democrats since forever- home. It might be an underhanded way of helping us forget that Charlie Crist was a pro-life Republican at one time. Very interesting that it does not mention Crist's desire to embrace Obama-Care by allowing the much needed Medicaid Expansion that Rick Scott has blocked for obvious political reasons.
Some Democrats I know are still not happy with Crist after he passed legislation cutting property taxes back before the real estate crash of 2008. Those cuts ended up causing massive shortfalls in municipal revenue across the state, which in turn caused lay-offs of public employees. This at a time when more public investment was needed to stave off further economic decline. I was in prison at the time so I have a slightly different view of ole Chain-Gang Charlie.
I lived through three different Republican Governors while locked up in the Florida State prison system. Doing time is different under each Governor. Because the Secretary of the Department of Corrections is appointed by the Governor, the way the department is run is often a direct reflection of the Governor's personality and policy aims. It's like living in the bowels of the Governor. When he gets gas, everyone in the DOC has to smell it.
When I first got there in April of 2005, Jeb Bush was Governor. Canteen prices were high and phone calls were rather expensive. Bush's Secretary of the DOC James V. Crosby and Allen Wayne Clark another high ranking officer had been indited for taking kick backs from the canteen supplier. Besides having greedy friends Jeb also was known for cutting programs in the DOC. He got rid of everything from music programs to group therapy, which basically amounted to firing a bunch of people and cutting the pay of anyone left. One beleaguered mental health professional told me his case load had tripled since Bush took over. The most bracing memory I have of Bush's vision for the DOC is of an inmate in my dorm with a ring hernia whose intestines had dropped into his scrotum. This poor guy waited for several weeks before being sent to the North Florida Regional Medical Center to have it fixed. And, for the more mundane things like false teeth, you might as well forget about it.
Chain Gang Charlie Crist got his name from being tough on crime. And, he did manage to implement controlled movement throughout the DOC when he took over. Controlled movement is hated by most inmates because it is enormously inconvenient to have to walk in a line everywhere you go and only at particular times. But, he got it done. He also kept Secretary McDonough on long after he was slated to leave because of McDonough's overwhelming positive influence on the department. Together, they cut the canteen prices and phone prices to much more reasonable levels, seeing that they were really gouging the families of the inmates more than the inmates themselves. Let's not forget that Crist also managed to restore the voting rights of convicted felons, later undone by Rick Scott. But the most important thing Charlie Crist did as Governor was to get rid of the rampant verbal and other abuse of inmates by the officers.
Before Governor Crist took over, we could be called any number of derogatory names. One Sargent used to call everyone in the chow line a "d#$k s@@ker," and would kick you out of line for smiling. Cause if you were smiling, you must be talking. Granted, by the time I got there they had whittled down some of the physical abuse. The verbal knocks though where constant and daily. I was called everything from a "d#@k with ears" to "sh@t head," "asshole." At intake to my first long term stop, I stood up to ask a question and the Sargent told me to, "sit down motherf#@ker!" Well, Charlie Crist put a stop to it. I don't know how he did it, but one day, just like someone had thrown a giant switch somewhere, it stopped. And, the verbal abuse stayed away until I got out in 2012. It took me almost three years since I got out to unfudge my mind even though the verbal abuse had been stopped years before. Needless to say, I am very grateful to Governor Crist for sparing me from that mental meat grinder.
Having been transferred through several institutions in 2007 in order to get hernia surgery for myself, I can tell you that the institutional vibe overall became much less menacing as well. It is impossible to describe to another privileged Caucasian what official peril feels like. Of course black folks know all too well the sensation of walking on these particular kinds of eggshells. I am fortunate indeed to have had a minuscule taste of what they have had to endure for centuries. As I write this, it dawns on me that ole Chain-gang Charlie must have a pretty good understanding of institutional racism to have vigourously sought these particular changes.
Rick Scott's DOC, on the other hand, has recently been under investigation by the FDLE for abusing inmates. No surprise there. When Scott took over, the officers seemed to be very concerned that he was going to mess with their pensions. Governor Scott wanted to privatize as many government services as he could, which is just a form of graft. So, on top of everything else, officers were concerned about pay cuts and layoffs. He closed some prisons, not necessarily a bad thing. And, was slow to give a 6% cost of living increase that was modified by a 3% retirement contribution taken out of their pay. He was crazy about running as many inmates as possible through a Bridges of America drug abuse survey program that as an avid 12 step participator I can tell you was a complete waste of time and money for a myriad of reasons. He also ramped up UA drug testing over all. Testing K-2 smokers for all of the other traditional substances is usually a waste of money. I have not been able to verify that he or his wife have financially benefited from the increased use of UA test strips or the Bridges of America deal so I will refrain from passing that rumor. In any case, at this point you probably get it. He is all about the money, and the DOC is like a massive pot of gold in maintenance contracts of all kinds. So it's easy to see what kind of Governor we have by exactly what they do with the DOC.