State: Critics say prison abuse now comes in spray can

Critics say prison abuse now comes in spray can

STARKE - Lawyers who for years heard constant complaints about prisoner abuse in Florida's prison system say Frank Valdes' death changed the way officers operate behind bars.

By ADAM C. SMITH, Times Political Editor

STARKE -- Lawyers who for years heard constant complaints about prisoner abuse in Florida's prison system say Frank Valdes' death changed the way officers operate behind bars.

Rather than beat up inmates, rogue officers now mostly douse them with painful chemicals, these inmate advocates say.

"The only change that I see is that there's been a change from physical force to gas," said Peter Siegel, a Miami lawyer who specializes in prison litigation.

"Before Valdes, we were getting all kinds of complaints about cell extractions -- people being forcibly yanked from their cells and beat up in the process. We don't get those complaints anymore. Instead, we get complaint after complaint about gas," Siegel said.

Other attorneys echoed Siegel's assessment. They also say they are swamped with complaints about officers coming up with bogus excuses to spray prisoners with pepper spray and other chemical agents.

"Very little has changed," said Lisa White Shirley of Florida Institutional Legal Services in Gainesville when asked how the Valdes murder case had affected America's fourth-largest prison system. "Complaints from inmates have increased exponentially."

Valdes, a career criminal who wound up on death row for killing a prison officer, accomplished in death what he never could during years behind bars badgering officers and filing complaints.

His July 1999 death, naked and battered in a solitary confinement cell, rocked the prison system with unprecedented scrutiny. It produced revelations about myriad problems, from shortfalls in how recruits are screened (the St. Petersburg Times found more than one in six Florida State Prison officers had arrest records) to dubious investigations into abuse allegations to complaints about systemic racism and poor medical care.

His death also mobilized a small army of grass roots prison activists in Florida. They write letters and fill Internet sites with mostly unsubstantiated accounts of misconduct in Florida's prisons.

In the end, though, neither the top brass of the Department of Corrections nor state political leaders saw the need for major changes. Corrections Secretary Michael Moore has consistently brushed off suggestions that the Valdes case was anything more than an aberration.

He responded with some policy changes. Video cameras now peer into the Florida State Prison wing where Valdes died, though not into most of the system's other solitary confinement wings.

Officers videotape instances where force is required, such as yanking uncooperative inmates from cells, but usually not when chemical agents are used. Internal investigators have more stringent training requirements, and investigatory reports are more clearly written.

Critics say the internal investigations still seem intent on backing up whatever officers say.

"You see these cases where the evidence seems overwhelming -- documented injuries to an inmate and several inmate witnesses -- but it always ends up unsubstantiated," said Shirley of Florida Institutional Legal Services.

Prisoners are notorious for making false claims. Still, allegations of staff misconduct increased nearly 35 percent during the three-year period that ended Sept. 30, reaching 5,198 in the last fiscal year.

Sterling Ivey, spokesman for the Department of Corrections, said no one should read much into the number of allegations. And he defended officers' reliance on chemical agents to control dangerous inmates.

"The Department of Corrections uses gas because it's the most preferred method that does not cause injury to the inmate or our staff," he said.

The department has only recently started tracking the use of chemical agents, but early indications show an increase. In 2000, chemicals were used 1,455 times, compared with 1,758 in 2001.