FLORIDA PRISONS ARE A SLOW-MOTION DISASTER.

AuthorCiaramella, C.J.

ON AUGUST 21, an inmate at Lowell Correctional Institution, Florida's largest women's prison, was transported to the hospital with a broken neck. According to eyewitness accounts that immediately began to leak, she was yet another victim of brutality at the facility.

The inmate, 51-year-old Cheryl Weimar, is now a quadriplegic, according to her lawyer. A lawsuit Weimar filed claims she was beaten by four guards after complaining that she couldn't clean toilets because of chronic hip pain.

Weimar's beating put a gruesome spotlight on the slow-motion disaster unfolding inside Florida's prison system. Inmates face sweltering heat and poor conditions. Low wages and high turnover mean persistent staff shortages, and guards engage in violence and cover-ups.

"I don't know what to tell you, but this is a culture in Florida that has gone on for 45, 50 years," says Democratic state Rep. Dianne Hart. "How do we expect them to change overnight without somebody really putting their foot down on them?"

Hart's former brother-in-law, Carlton Hart, was beaten by guards inside another Florida prison this summer. Hart says officers broke his jaw, nose, and cheekbone and shattered his eye socket.

Last August, the Justice Department launched a civil rights investigation into pervasive misconduct, including sexual abuse, by staff at Lowell. A 2015 Miami...

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