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TALLAHASSEE - With drug crimes pushing Florida's inmate population to capacity, the Legislature voted Wednesday to spend $66-million without competitive bids.
In authorizing 4,000 new beds, lawmakers cited the effect of tough sentencing laws passed in the 1990s. While inmates are spending more time behind bars, a team of criminal justice experts attributes much of the population growth to drug offenses, mainly cocaine possession, not violent crime.
The rush to build more beds comes as lawmakers plan re-election campaigns. Prisons always make good politics, and lawmakers dread the alternative: early release of violent felons.
"Put the criminals behind bars, where they belong," said Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, minutes before the Senate passed the bill, 37-0.
The action comes two months after lawmakers passed a budget, raising questions about the causes of the unexpected spike in the prison population.
Nobody seems to have a precise answer. "I'm not quite sure, exactly," said Gov. Jeb Bush, as he praised lawmakers for a job well done at the end of Wednesday's fourth special session.
The Criminal Justice Estimating Conference said prisons took in 2,823 new inmates in June, the largest one-month total in 11 years. The number of prisoners sentenced on drug offenses has grown by 13.4 percent in the past year, compared with a 4 percent rise in the number of inmates sentenced for murder.
Five counties, including Hillsborough, are responsible for much of the growth, the panel said. Hillsborough sent 617 more inmates into the system last year than the year before, the panel said last month in a report that formed the basis for legislative action. State prison officials attributed much of that growth to tougher prosecutions of drug cases.
To build beds faster, lawmakers gave Corrections Secretary James Crosby the power to award contracts without bids. Crosby said he needs that flexibility to block challenges by losing bidders, which he said can delay construction for months.
Crosby can award a multiyear contract of as much as $49-million for a 1,380-bed annex at the Santa Rosa Correctional Institution, $1.3-million in renovations to a recently closed Hendry Correctional Institution and $5-million to add 14 dorms, each with 131 beds, at various prisons. The dorms will be built with inmate labor.
Lt. Gov. Toni Jennings met with several skeptical senators to reassure them that waiving bids will not lead to abuses. Some Democrats objected, but voted for the bill.
"Unfortunately, I have to vote for this," said Sen. Walter "Skip" Campbell, D-Fort Lauderdale. "I don't want to put someone out on the streets to commit more crimes."
House Democrats were more critical. They juxtaposed the rush to ease prison crowding with the dire situation on state university campuses, where presidents are threatening to cap enrollment.
But the Democrats' efforts to divert the money to schools, probation officers or youth anticrime programs were defeated or ruled out of order by the Republican majority.
Rep. Nancy Detert of Venice was the only Republican to vote against the bill, which passed the House 90 to 22.