Page 14 - Florida Sentinel 4-9-21

State News
Civil And Human Rights Organizations Fight For Open Records At Florida Prisons
NNPA NEWSWIRE — Human Rights Defense Cen- ter is appealing to the Third District Court of Appeal in Miami, arguing that by working in prison on a state contract, Armor must com- ply with Florida public records laws. “Any lawyer who represents people in prison can tell you that it’s incredibly difficult to get in- formation on what is going on behind bars,” said Kelly Knapp, senior supervising attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center.
BY STACY M. BROWN, NNPA Newswire Senior
National Correspondent @StacyBrownMedia
African Americans com- prise about half of the more than 100,000 inmates in Florida prisons and jails.
Black males ages 30 to 34 have the highest incarcer- ation rate of any race, age, or gender group in the Sun- shine State, which boasts the third-largest prison popula- tion in the United States.
Against that backdrop, an amicus brief filed this week in the Third District Court of Appeal in Miami is critical.
Exacerbating the alarm for civil and human rights organizations is the record of malpractice that private prison companies in Florida have.
ter, stated.
“Our democracy de-
pends on the public’s right to know what the govern- ment is doing, and access to public information is a con- stitutional right that must be protected,” Benjamin Stevenson, ACLU staff at- torney determined.
In 2013, Florida entered into a five-year, $1.2 billion contract with Corizon, a Tennessee company, to pro- vide medical care to thou- sands of incarcerated people in Florida.
Reportedly, in the five years before Corizon’s part- nership, the private com- pany faced over 600 lawsuits stemming from al- legations of malpractice.
In December 2012, the Florida Department of Cor- rections also entered into a $240 million contract with Wexford Health Sources, a Pennsylvania-based com- pany, to provide medical services to incarcerated peo- ple in nine institutions throughout South Florida.
Reports indicated that between January 2008 through 2012, Wexford faced over 1,000 claims of malpractice from people in prisons.
The organizations ar- gued in their brief that the sheer number of lawsuits against private contractors providing prison services underscores the need for ef- fective monitoring in pris- ons.
“Access to records of government contractors is critical as more prison serv- ices are privatized. These records are necessary for the public and the press to over- see the conditions of Florida prisons and jails,” Pamela Marsh, President of the First Amendment Founda- tion, argued.
“Forcing the public to sue a government entity, rather than a contractor act- ing on behalf of an agency, unnecessarily drags out the enforcement of a public records request and in- creases the costs of enforc- ing the constitutional right of public access.”
The First Amendment Foundation, ACLU of Florida, and the Southern
Poverty Law Center filed the brief supporting the plain- tiffs in Human Rights De- fense Center v. Armor Correctional Health Services Inc.
According to a news re- lease, the organizations filed the brief because of their “longstanding interest in preserving an open and transparent government and protecting the public’s right to access public records, in- cluding public records held by private companies that provide services to Florida’s incarcerated population.”
The Human Rights De- fense Center filed a public records request with Armor Correctional Health Serv- ices, which provides medical care in Florida prisons, seek- ing details of its treatment of incarcerated people.
The release noted that the trial judge dismissed the case because Armor is a pri- vate company, and any re- quest for information needed to go through the Florida Department of Cor- rections.
Human Rights Defense Center is appealing to the Third District Court of Ap- peal in Miami, arguing that by working in prison on a state contract, Armor must comply with Florida public records laws, the release fur- ther stated.
“Any lawyer who repre- sents people in prison can tell you that it’s incredibly difficult to get information on what is going on behind bars,” Kelly Knapp, senior supervising attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Cen-
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