OUR VIEW: Florida's leaders face tough questions on prisons

It's time to call out everyone in Florida with the power to change our terrible state prison system.

GateHouse Florida newspapers have been running a series of articles that illustrate the shockingly bad prison conditions in our state, conditions that do not protect public safety.

Too many prisoners are released with little chance of going straight. In fact, prison often makes them more violent and less able to cope after release.

Prisoners are being deprived of even the chance of rehabilitation. Instead, state prisons are warehouses of anger, violence and desperation.

[WASTED MINDS: Fewer black inmates graduate from Florida prison education programs]

We have some questions for all the decision makers.

To those who believe in saving money, what's your excuse for a system that simply doesn't work?

To those who believe in fighting crime, why allow prisoners to leave jail more toughened than when they went in?

What's your excuse for throwing good tax money after bad every year?

How do you explain the fact that conservative leaders like Newt Gingrich and Charles Koch believe that the public can be protected and money can be saved with a smart justice approach?

How blind can you be to the fact that other tough-on-crime states like Texas and Georgia are keeping the crime rate low while at the same time reducing the prison population and closing prisons?

Why is Florida taking so long to get on the smart justice bandwagon?

When state prison wardens said that salaries are too low, shifts are too long, working conditions are poor and prison violence is increasing, were you listening? Wardens identified high staff vacancy rates, leaving critical posts in the facilities unmanned. That dynamic contributes to rising levels of inmate-on-inmate and inmate-on-staff violence, the wardens said. Are you planning to act?

How can you sleep at night knowing that prison guards are being underpaid, that conditions are so poor that gangs are basically in charge?

Are you proud that America is the world's biggest jailer and that Florida has been on a prison-building boom while state support to universities has been slashed?

Are you genuinely proud of Florida's school-to-prison pipeline?

Is the fact that prisons don't provide much schooling or real vocational training intentional or just a sign of malign neglect?

Is your real goal simply to punish prisoners and forget all possibilities of rehabilitation?

Is mental health and substance abuse care in prisons so poor because you're willing to put up with cruelty?

Do you think that keeping prisoners in cells without air conditioning makes them less aggressive?

What does prisoners more good, money for weightlifting equipment or money for GED programs?

Do you think the prisons are someone else's job? Would you rather ignore these issues, especially when a prison is not in your district?

Why do you make it so difficult for ex-offenders to get on their feet after release? Do you want them committing more crimes and returning to prison?

Why don't you provide more funds to proven job training programs that help prisoners become contributing members of society? Why did you cut funding to programs like Daytona Beach's Reality House, which provided transition services to soon-to-be-released inmates in need of addiction treatment before it was forced to close in 2018?

Why don't you appoint an oversight group to reveal issues and offer solutions to state prisons before they become crises?

Have you ever visited Florida's prisons and seen the terrible conditions? Ignorance is no excuse.

Have you visited the faith-based programs that have been shown to reduce recidivism? Why aren't there more of them?

When you see prisoners, do you see them as fellow humans with a chance at redemption or do you see them as lost causes? Have you spoken to members of the prison ministry who have developed relationships with prisoners?

If you're a Christian, do you see Christ in your fellow human beings, following Matthew (25:36), "I was in prison and you came to Me?" Or have you rewritten it as, "I was in prison and you abandoned Me?"

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