Florida Corrections Chief Mike Crews Stepping Down

November 25, 2014

Gov. Rick Scott’s corrections chief, Mike Crews, announced Monday he is retiring from the agency grappling with reports of abuse by prison guards, allegations of retaliation against whistleblowers and a multimillion-dollar deficit.

Crews, who ended months of speculation about his departure during a conference call with high-ranking staff Monday morning, is the first agency head to step down since Scott’s re-election Nov. 4 and is retiring after 30 years of employment with the state.

Crews told Scott in a resignation letter dated Monday that he decided to leave his Department of Corrections post “after much deliberation, discussion and prayer” with his family.

In a telephone interview with our Tallahassee news bureau, Crews acknowledged that he has “dealt with some significant issues over the last few years.” He also offered some advice for his temporary successor, Tim , a deputy secretary of the agency who will take over as interim secretary after Crews leaves Sunday.

“Stay the course on the things that we are doing and have implemented and that we’re doing right,” Crews said. “The most important thing is don’t ever stop caring about doing the right thing and caring about each other. When you have an agency as large as we are, you’re going to have challenges. You’re going to have things that are going to happen that you’re going to have to deal with, that’s a part of it. But there are some of the most incredible men and women that work for that department that do things that would astonish most people. And they do them during a time when it has been some of the most difficult times that our agency has ever had.”

Crews, 53, was the third Department of Corrections secretary appointed during Scott’s first term in office.

Crews launched a crusade to clean up the corrections agency this summer after reports of inmate deaths and abuse at the hands of prison guards. Crews, who began his career as a prison guard, fired dozens of prison workers, initiated new standards for conduct and asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, where he spent nearly three decades before becoming the corrections agency’s deputy secretary in 2012, to investigate more than unresolved 100 inmate deaths.

Black leaders are asking the U.S. Department of Justice to expand an investigation into wrongdoing at several Florida prisons.

And a group of corrections investigators who work for Scott’s inspector general filed a lawsuit against Crews, Scott and others earlier this year, alleging they were retaliated against for exposing the death of an inmate that opened a floodgate of questions about inmate abuse.

Scott’s first prison chief, Ed Buss, was forced to step down after less than a year on the job after being at odds with the governor’s office over contracts and a massive privatization attempt that the Legislature failed to endorse.

Buss was replaced by Ken Tucker, a longtime Florida Department of Law Enforcement official and one of Crews’ mentors. Tucker stepped down two years ago as part of a longtime plan to participate in the state’s retirement program.

In December 2012, Crews took over an agency with a $2 billion budget that was $120 million in debt and was tied up in a court battle over privatization of inmate health services. Crews initiated a variety of cost-cutting measures, including having inmates sew their own clothes, make their own laundry soap and wash dishes by hand. Crews said he hoped to whittle the deficit down to $15 million this year.

Crews urged the next secretary to advocate for raises for corrections workers, who have not received the same increases that have gone to other law enforcement employees such as Florida Highway Patrol officers.

“While those people deserve it, leaving out correctional officers and our probation officers out of that discussion, that’s a tragedy. For at least 12 hours a day, they’re inside a closed-in fence with the same people that committed the crimes that the officers who are stopping and making arrests and subjecting themselves to life-and-death situations. They’re in the same environment where they’re closed in with them for at least 12 hours a day, every day. To not recognize that and put them at the forefront of consideration, I think is a tragedy,” Crews said in an interview Monday.

But Crews’ major headaches came this summer after the Miami Herald reported that Darren Rainey, a mentally ill inmate at Dade Correctional Institution, died after guards allegedly forced him to shower in scalding hot water as punishment two years ago. Rainey’s death prompted Crews to fire the warden at the prison and clean house at other institutions where inmates have died under questionable circumstances.

The FBI is reportedly scrutinizing Suwannee Correctional Institution, where an inmate-led riot injured five prison guards in October. The April 2 death of inmate Shawn Gooden at the facility is one of more than 100 inmate deaths being investigated by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

In the lawsuit filed by the group of investigators, the whistleblowers claim they started a probe into allegations of prison guard misconduct at Franklin Correctional Institution in 2013. That investigation revealed that an earlier probe into the 2010 death of inmate Randall Jordan-Aparo, who died in solitary confinement after being repeatedly gassed with noxious chemicals, “was false and misleading.” Several of the guards involved in Jordan-Aparo’s death have since been fired.

Crews has also wrestled with widespread gang activity aided by corrupt guards.

As an example, two former prison sergeants are awaiting trial after being accused of ordering an inmate to be killed last fall to protect the guards’ role as kingpins of an institution-wide gang operation at Taylor Correctional Institution in North Florida.

For more than a year, at least five guards allegedly helped the “Bloods,” “Folk” and “MPR” gangs by smuggling drugs, cell phones and cigarettes into the prison in exchange for thousands of dollars in payments, according to probable-cause affidavits.

Cell phones, which can sell for up to $600 inside prisons, are a problem in correctional systems throughout the country, Crews said last month.

“You have individuals who say, ‘If I bring in 10 of those, I’m probably sitting on $5,000 or $6,000.’ Some people can’t turn down that temptation,” he said. “Yeah, we have gangs in prisons just like are out on the street right now. It is a constant battle to make sure we keep monitoring those and try to minimize their effectiveness inside the institution, and outside the institution, honestly.”

Crews also struggled to change the culture of the prison system, which oversees more than 100,000 inmates, and which is the best — or only — job in many rural counties, especially in North Florida, where the institutions are located. In some areas, guards are third-generation employees of the corrections department whose family members and neighbors also work at the prisons. Crews tried to convince prison staff to report wrongdoing, but fears of retaliation and shunning are common in the system.

Crews assured workers that he would protect them if they expose abuse or corruption.

“There’s no doubt there are still people who work in this agency that are fearful of coming forward for doing the right thing. There’s no doubt in my mind about that. We didn’t get into the position that we’re in today overnight. We’re not going to get out of it overnight. This takes time. And when you’re trying to change a culture you have to do it from the top down and the bottom up,” he said in an October interview.

In September, Crews threatened to stop payments to Missouri-based Corizon, which won a five-year, $1.2 billion contract to provide health care to the majority of the state’s prisoners. Crews accused Corizon of failing to follow through after audits revealed shortcomings in multiple areas, including medical care, nursing and administration.

by Dara Kam, The News Service of Florida

Comments

3 Responses to “Florida Corrections Chief Mike Crews Stepping Down”

  1. 429SCJ on November 26th, 2014 6:16 am

    @Sgt’s wife, as far as messes go, be they cleaned within the walls or outside the walls, a mess cleaned, is a mess cleaned. These problems may not be as though and difficult as you believe. The key to is in getting started.

    Remember that we are only limited by our imagination and range of motion.

  2. Sgt's Wife on November 25th, 2014 3:55 pm

    I hate to see CREWS go! There is still plenty of clean up needed and I can only pray it continues.

  3. 429SCJ on November 25th, 2014 2:23 am

    If you cannot stand the heat in the kitchen. Then it would be best to leave.

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