2011 CONTINUED
GOVERNOR RICK SCOTT NAMES KENNETH S. TUCKER AS THE NEW SECRETARY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS
Kenneth S. Tucker
Secretary
On August 24, 2011, Governor Rick Scott names Kenneth S. Tucker as the new Secretary of the Florida Department of Corrections. Tucker was previously Deputy Commissioner at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), where he had worked since 1983. He is a 34-year law enforcement veteran who brings significant experience and leadership to his position as Secretary of Corrections. At FDLE, Tucker was responsible for providing overall agency management and policy direction for law enforcement operations statewide. He oversaw the seven Regional Operations Centers, Investigations and Forensic Sciences Program Office, Forensic Services, and Field Services.
He also held various management positions at FDLE including Special Agent Supervisor, Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Tampa Bay Regional Operations Center, and Special Agent in Charge of the Jacksonville Regional Operations Center.
He began his law enforcement career with the Daytona Beach Police Department in 1977 after completing three years of military service. Secretary Tucker is a graduate of the University of Central Florida and a graduate of the FBI National Academy. Secretary Tucker is also a past President of the Northeast Florida Law Enforcement Executives Association.
Click here to hear Secretary Tucker share the unusual circumstances of how he was selected Secretary.
Click here to hear Secretary Kenneth S. Tucker, who served as Secretary of the Florida Department of Corrections from 2011-2012 after a long career with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, discusses the challenges he faced as the new Secretary during a tumultuous time in corrections.
Glades Correctional Institution, which opened in 1932 and is one of our oldest prisons, closes on November 14, 2011.
ANGELS AND DEMONS
Oba Chandler, who was convicted for the 1989 murders of an Ohio mother, Joan Rogers, and her two daughters, Michelle and Christe, who were vacationing in the Tampa area, is executed on November 15, 2011. He had been on death row since November 1994. Then-St. Pete Times staff writer Thomas French writes a series about the murders that Oba Chandler committed that earned French a well-deserved Pulitzer Prize in 1998. Here’s a link to Angels and Demons.
Oba Chandler's mugshot
A watermelon from one of FDC's farm programs.
Two inmates are executed in 2011. They are:
- Oba Chandler, after 17 years on death row; and
- Manuel Valle (30 years on death row).
Click here to hear Secretary Kenneth S. Tucker provide a unique perspective on the death penalty.
2012
March 2012, Legislators expand a program to transition all corrections officers from 8 to 12-hour work shifts, allowing them to earn more, but this change will soon result in new staffing and overtime costs that burden an already strained budget.
On March 18, 2012, Sergeant Ruben H. Thomas III, 24, is killed by an inmate in the line of duty at Columbia CI Annex. He is stabbed to death by an inmate using a homemade shank. The inmate, Richard Franklin, is originally sentenced to death, but is subsequently resentenced to life. Franklin is already serving a life sentence for a separate murder when he takes Sgt. Thomas’s life. Sergeant Thomas leaves behind a fiancé and daughter, along with his parents. He had been with the Department for six years.
PRISONS AND WORK CAMPS CLOSE
Because of falling admissions, excess bedspace, and budget issues, seven prisons and seven work camps are closed in 2012. They are:
- New River Correctional Institution (C.I.) in Raiford (closed 3/28/12);
- Broward C.I. in Fort Lauderdale (closed 6/22/12);
- Demilly in Polk City (closed 5/30/12);
- Gainesville C.I. (closed 3/23/12);
- Hillsborough C.I. in Riverview near Tampa (closed 3/29/12);
- Indian River C.I. in Vero Beach (closed 5/25/12); and
- Mayo CI in Lafayette County (closed 1/24/12).
The seven work camps that closed are:
- River Junction in Chattahoochee (closed 3/23/12);
- Washington Work Camp in Washington county (closed 3/16/12);
- New River “O” Unit in Bradford County (closed 3/22/12);
- Hamilton Work Camp (closed 4/12/12);
- Columbia Work Camp (closed 4/16/12);
- Levy Forestry Camp (closed 3/16/12); and
- Hendry Work Camp (closed 6/15/12).
LOCKUP : SANTA ROSA - EXTENDED STAY
A television series called Lockup airs six one-hour episodes filmed at Santa Rosa Correctional Institution entitled Lockup: Santa Rosa – Extended Stay. The episodes touch on mentally ill inmates, gangs, Restricted Labor Squads, staff and more. The filming of the episodes was one of the conflicts former Secretary Buss had with the Governor’s Office during his tenure.
Polk CI is designated as a re-entry facility, housing inmates nearing release who will be returning to Hillsborough, Polk and Pinellas counties.
Click here to hear Secretary Kenneth S. Tucker discuss a range of prison issues, including the “three types of inmates.”
FDC opens “Portal of Entry” sites in Duval, Hillsborough, Pinellas and Palm Beach counties. These designated release locations are for offenders who served time in a local jail, state or federal prison, and are returning to a specific county. At the portal, offenders are connected with services like on-site felony registration, meal vouchers, legal aid and healthcare.
In the summer of 2012, the FDC embarks on a series of Town Hall and Community Partnership meetings designed to strengthen relationships with businesses, volunteers, community members and local leaders and to develop partnerships that would help inmates and offenders successfully transition back into their communities.
Click here to hear Secretary Kenneth S. Tucker talk about his three priorities as Secretary, and the role dying plants and Home Depot played.
The Corrections Foundation assists 575 employees by distributing approximately $613,150 to those in need.
INMATE DEATH
June 23, Dade CI Inmate Darren Rainey dies in a prison shower, where he is placed after smearing feces on himself and prison walls. There are allegations that prison officers locked him inside the shower and he was scalded to death from the hot water, and that they purposely did so as punishment. Media interest in his death is intense. After a lengthy investigation by Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle’s office, these allegations are not proven and the officers are not charged. “The evidence fails to show that any correctional officer acted in reckless disregard of Rainey’s life,” prosecutors write in their report.
The recidivism rate for inmates drops to 26.3% (for inmates who were released in 2009), meaning for those inmates who were released in 2009, 26.3% of them returned to a Florida state prison within a three-year period.
Click here to hear Secretary Kenneth S. Tucker talk about having a last conversation with inmates about to be executed.
Three inmates are executed in 2012. They are:
- Robert Waterhouse. Robert Waterhouse was convicted of the 1980 murder of Deborah Kammerer of St. Petersburg, whose body was found in Tampa Bay. She'd been beaten, raped and dragged into the bay, where she drowned. Waterhouse was executed on February 15, 2012 after 31 years on death row.
- David Alan Gore, 58, was executed on Thursday, April 12, for the murder of Lynn Elliott, 17, whom he had kidnapped in Pinellas County in 1983 when she was hitchhiking to the beach. He admitted to killing a total of six women. He was pronounced dead at Florida State Prison at 6:19 pm after more than 26 years on death row.
- Manuel Pardo, Jr., 56, was executed on Tuesday, December 11, 2012 for a 1986 killing spree in which he murdered nine people. Pardo, a former police officer and Highway Patrol Officer, was executed by lethal injection at Florida State Prison in Starke and pronounced dead at 7:47 pm. He had been on death row since June 1988 (24.5 years).
Click here to hear Secretary Kenneth S. Tucker offer some advice for new Secretaries of Corrections.
