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To our members and all news media,

For those concerned with continued access to Florida prison inmates and related issues prompted by moves to restrict such access, I have gathered the following information.

The e-correspondence below is chronological; to read the latest, click here.

Jeff Newell

FOI Chairman, The Northwest Florida Press Club

Recent dispatches from the front:

From: "Wm. F. Hirschman <eteam@sunsent.com>

Subject: SPJ'S FOI UPDATE ON PRISON ACCESS RESTRICTIONS IN FLORIDA

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1999 21:27:36 -0400

FIRST AMENDMENT ALERT UPDATE

FROM THE SOUTH FLORIDA CHAPTER OF THE SOCIETY OF PROFESSIONAL

JOURNALISTS

The Corrections Department has scheduled a roundtable workshop in Tallahassee to discuss restricting news media access to prisoners, on Monday, Nov. 1 from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the Florida Parole Commission hearing room at 2601 Blairstone Road.

The proposed regulations have not been released yet and Secretary Moore's staff does not expect them to be released before the hearing.

It works to our advantage if they are not be drafted until after the workshop and is, in fact, something we asked for early on. With such a politically and emotionally-charged issue, it will be very difficult for the department to dilute or even abandon an objectionable proposal once it is on the table.

While it makes it difficult to respond to, Moore and his staff have repeatedly said his original message on their website should guide our response. This is the message that suggests asking cops whether we should be able to interview prisoners and suggests corrections officials might decide who is a legitimate journalist.

As a result, we are drafting a detailed white paper to submit next week.

Moore's staff says that this will be a dialogue, not just silent officials refusing to respond to testimony. But they note that people will only have 5 to 10 minutes to speak. Obviously, those statements don't scan. Further, his staff was doubtful that Moore will be present.

Instead, the meeting will be run by PIO C.J. Drake, Moore's point person on this issue. Corrections lawyers and other administrators will also be present. They also say this will not be the only meeting before rules are passed.

Despite numerous requests, including one under the Sunshine Law, the department has been unwilling or unable to produce any information on the frequency of media requests, nor documented complaints from guards or victims resulting from those interviews. In other words, while it's certain they will scrounge up several people to support their position at the hearing, they seem unable at the moment to document that they have any problem at all let alone whether it's of a magnitude that requires regulating.

Again, please keep up the pressure on the editorial page. Keep sending e-mails and letters to Moore, state legislators on committees overseeing the corrections department, and especially, Gov. Bush. And finally, those of you who are able, please join us in Tallahassee on Nov.1.

Many may be skeptical that we can have an effect. But the department already appears to have limited what they had in mind because of our industry-wide response. Further, we have had an amazing run of luck this year in turning back legislative proposals.

And FYI: Today, AP's Kevin Walsh forwarded a frightening 1996 article from Moore's tenure in South Carolina. Here are excerpts:

"COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) _ New rules have put an end to interviews with Death Row inmates before executions, while face-to-face interviews are harder to get for all the state's nearly 19,000 prisoners.

Corrections Department Director Michael Moore decided the change was needed to make the prisons run more smoothly, a spokesman said Monday.

Moore eliminated Death Row interviews last week after a May 31 execution date was set for Robert South, who fatally shot a rookie West Columbia police officer.

Moore "doesn't want to be a part of anything that would put an inmate on Death Row in a celebrity status," Corrections Department spokesman John Barkley said.

The agency decided in February to stop allowing specially arranged face-to-face interviews of any inmates, Barkley said.

Reporters can arrange to visit inmates during regular visiting hours, and they can still talk to inmates by telephone or correspond through the mail.

But visiting and calling are more difficult under recent rule changes that allow an inmate's visitors list of no more than 15 people to be changed only once every three months. The list of 20 people an inmate can call can be changed once a month.

Regular interviews disrupt prison operations and put demands on

This message is not an editorial statement of my newspaper; I am speaking only for myself individually and in my capacity as FOI chairman for the Northwest Florida Press Club.

I spotted a national wire AP story last week regarding sexual abuse of women inmates in Virginia. This seems to be just the sort of example that would be useful in defending media access to prison inmates. The most telling paragraph in the attached story would be this one:

"Inmate complaints typically are investigated by the prison system itself. After the AP report was published, State Secretary of Public Safety Gary Aronhalt said he was launching his own investigation."

In other words, the system would still be investigating itself, with no meaningful outside oversight, had the AP not had the ability to speak with the inmates and publicize the extent of the problem.

And that, I submit, is a compelling argument in favor of preserving media access to the prison system, including the inmates.

Florida DOC's reasoning appears to be that televised interviews of brutal killers is upsetting to victims and victims' family members.

No doubt, such interviews are upsetting to them. However, I would submit that those concerns must be balanced against the social benefit offered by the independent oversight of government functions, including the prison system, that the press provides.

Prisons are indeed special situations in which inmates by design have most of the everyday freedoms we take for granted severely curtailed.

Prisons are special because, as the attached amply demonstrates, the opportunities for abuse are rampant, and the inmates' options for legal relief are as close to nonexistent as they can be in an otherwise free society.

Recent events also indicate this is not the time to be restricting access to Florida's prisons. Witness the X-Wing and Frank Valdes' death in July.

Also, the AP earlier this month had a report based on work by the St. Petersburg Times and the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel regarding inmate medical care. Those reports indicate that at least 56 inmates have died since 1994 from inadequate medical care. An official of the Corrections Medical Authority stated flatly that these were preventable deaths.

As I said, this is no time to be curbing news media access to Florida's prisons.

I would argue that society's interest in having well-run, humane and accountable prison systems outweighs a need to shield victims and families from the genuine anguish they may occasionally suffer. As regrettable as this anguish is, no one is compelled to read, watch or listen to inmate interviews.

The public also has a stake in this issue in that problems allowed to fester inside prison walls have consequences for taxpayers when inmates file lawsuits. Media coverage of those problems can head that off, resulting in humane conditions for inmates, an informed public, more accountability in the prison system and less litigation.

There was much discussion of this issue regarding similar attempts to curtail media access to prisons and inmates in California on the FOI-L listserv. There may be more useful information in that listserv's archives.

From: "Wm. F. Hirschman" <eteam@sunsent.com>

Subject: Re: SPJ'S FOI UPDATE ON PRISON ACCESS RESTRICTIONS IN FLORIDA

Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1999 23:34:52 -0500

Some of you have asked for a quick update on the prisoner access situation.

I promise to get a full report out mid-next week, but I'm on my way out of town and it's been crazy since I got back.

But here's the short version. The Corrections folks promised to take about 85 percent of the issues off the table, but left a heinous few we cannot live with, including the idea that they would decide who is a legitimate journalist.

They are so overwhelmed with grass fires that they think it will be weeks before they actually draft proposed regulations.

But one of our colleagues has a well-placed source who says this is all horse-radish. Bush is behind all this, not Moore. Bush wants a Draconian crackdown similar to South Carolina's blanket blackout.

Bill

--

Wm. F. Hirschman "I can back up everything I write half the time."

Education Writer --Slap Maxwell

Sun-Sentinel "There are at least two kinds of education."

Fort Lauderdale, Fl. --George Ade

954-356-4513 bhirschman@sun-sentinel.com