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Florida breached agreement to accommodate inmates with disabilities, lawsuit says

Miami Herald - 12/5/2019

Dec. 5--It's been about two years since Florida and Disability Rights Florida, a statewide advocacy group, reached a settlement that was meant to improve conditions for inmates with disabilities.

But the group says the state has failed to comply with the 2017 agreement by not providing interpreters for inmates who are deaf or hard of hearing, confiscating mobility devices from inmates who need them to get around and not providing white canes for inmates who are blind, among other issues.

"Despite our years-long monitoring efforts, people with physical disabilities who are incarcerated in Florida prisons are still not receiving the accommodations, aids, and services they are entitled to," said Dante P. Trevisani, executive director of the Florida Justice Institute in a statement. "It's time for the Department of Corrections to follow through on its promises made in the settlement agreement."

On Wednesday, Disability Rights Florida, represented by the Florida Justice Institute and Morgan & Morgan, P.A., filed a lawsuit in Leon County against the FDC, saying the state has breached the settlement and asked for a judge to order compliance.

The department said it had not yet been served with the lawsuit.

"FDC has been working collaboratively with Disability Rights Florida [DRF] over the last three years to ensure compliance with the identified ADA issues at our facilities," the department said in a statement. "We have sent a proposed corrective action plan to address DRFs concerns, and will continue to make the necessary improvements agreed to."

On Jan. 26, 2016, Disability Rights Florida sued the department in federal court, alleging that the state failed to provide inmates with disabilities access to its programs and services in violation of the Eighth Amendment and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Among the complaints were that the state didn't supply interpreters, hearing aids, telecommunications access, and effective emergency alerts to inmates who were deaf or hard of hearing. For inmates who rely on wheelchairs or are otherwise physically impaired, it failed to maintain accessible facilities or wheelchairs and neglected to provide prosthetic devices for inmates with mobility impairments, the lawsuit says.

FDC also excluded inmates with disabilities from education, employment, and recreational programs, the group said. It charged inmates for accommodations relating to their disabilities, retaliated against those who complained and failed to properly train staff on issues related to disability rights and federal disability law, the lawsuit asserts.

The parties agreed to a final settlement on July 7, 2017, which required FDC to implement changes that would make Florida prison services, programming, and other aspects of daily activities accessible to inmates with physical disabilities.

The settlement also required FDC to provide appropriate training for staff members on disability laws as well as establish internal policies regarding inmates with disabilities.

The settlement, which took five-months to negotiate, required that Disability Rights of Florida be able to conduct visits and speak confidentially with inmates to ensure compliance with the agreement. It also required the state to pay $2 million in attorneys' fees and costs.

In response to the settlement, Gov. Ron DeSantis included several line items in his 2020-21 budget request to the Legislature including:

-- $5.9 million for building renovations for the third year of a multi-year plan to convert the department's mental health treatment services to an in-patient model. Under the plan, inmates would receive therapy in the housing units as opposed to having staffers separately escort each inmate out of their secure unit to another building or another facility. According to the budget request, the renovations include "converting existing cells into large group therapy rooms, individual treatment rooms, medical consultation offices, and nursing stations" at Wakulla and Santa Rosa correctional institutions. New mental health treatment staff would be hired.

-- $1.4 million for the final phase of architectural and engineering services related to the construction of a new mental health hospital to be located at Lake Correctional Institution.

-- $10 million to finance the first year of a 20-year bond to build the $134 million mental health facility to comply with the Disability Rights of Florida Consent Decree. "Lake Correctional Institution was chosen as it is located in an area that provides access to an adequate pool of mental health and security staff."

But Disability Rights, which says its been monitoring the prison system closely, cited several examples in the suit in which the state has not complied with deadlines for improvements.

In one case, the group says the state was supposed to provide interpreters to inmates who are deaf or hard of hearing by the end of 2018.

"This is a significant breach of the agreement," the group said in the lawsuit.

The 34-page suit includes a list of 13 points that the group says the state has not complied with. The group said it came to the conclusion by touring prisons, interviewing people and reviewing documents provided by the corrections department.

"Federal laws guarantee that individuals who are incarcerated have the right to be protected from discrimination," Peter Sleasman, legal director of Disability Rights Florida, said in a news release. "The settlement agreement was intended to bring FDC in compliance with these laws, which have long been in place on the federal level. However, FDC has failed to live up to their end of the bargain, and it is long past time that the rights of individuals with disabilities are upheld in Florida's prisons."

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