Corrections

CORRECTIONS

The mission of the Palm Beach County Department of Corrections is to provide, cost effective high degree of security for the citizens of Palm Beach County, and safety for both the inmates and staff of each of the facilities. It is also recognized that incarceration is, in and of itself punishment. All inmates shall be held accountable for their actions and shall leave the detention facility no worse physically, emotionally or physiologically than when they first were incarcerated.

A positive atmosphere shall be created for both inmates and staff in accordance with the Florida Model Jail Standards. We shall provide a safe and secure environment for inmates, provide necessary training for correctional personnel and create a variety of programs which provide inmates an opportunity to prepare themselves for introduction into less restrictive detention environment of the system, and eventual introduction into their communities. Also positive incentives for inmates shall be created through a classification system based on their exhibited behavior.

The Department of Corrections is committed to the preservation of the basic human rights and dignity.

The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office Department of Corrections
The Florida Corrections Accreditation Commission, the American Correctional Association and the National Commission on Correctional Health Care System accredit jail system. The Sheriff operate three correctional facilities in Palm Beach County and employees a staff of 905 within the Department of Corrections.
The three facilities have an overall bed capacity of 3,233 beds. Only 2,701 beds are available at this writing. An average daily population of 2550 inmates is housed at the Main Detention Center, the Stockade and the West Detention.

All persons arrested on criminal charges in Palm Beach County are taken to the Main Detention Center for booking. The Operations section fingerprints, photographs and housing. Overlooking Trump International Golf Course, over 54,000 persons are booked into the Main Detention Center annually.

The Corrections Support section runs many innovative programs for inmates to include; Substance Abuse Awareness Program, Inmate Work Release Program, In-House Arrest program utilizing electronic monitoring, and a Weekend Sentence Program. All of these programs are located at the Stockade.

The Substance Abuse Awareness Program was one of the first programs nationally that addressed the therapeutic needs of criminals charged with drug related offenses. The Substance Abuse Awareness Program is a boot camp / therapeutic program that targets those offenders whose drug addictions have led them to criminal activity to support their drug habits. The inmates in the program are sentenced to a year or less, and must continue therapy when their sentence is completed.

The Inmate Work Release program is for inmates sentence to a year or less. Inmates in this program must pay for room and board. In 1999, over $400,000.00 was paid by inmates on this program. The revenues from this program are returned to the county general revenue fund, annually.

The In-House Arrest Program uses electronic monitoring to allow inmates to complete their sentence of a year or less in their home. The inmates in this program pay a fee for participating. This program returns over $200,000.00 to the county general revenue fund, annually.

The Weekend Sentence Program is for inmates charged with minor crimes. The inmates participate in a variety of work details, such as: washing the department cars, picking up trash in the county parks and along roadways, etc.

The budget of the Department of Corrections for 2000/2001 is $70,030,817.00, the bulk of which is personnel costs. A recent change to the administrative code governing county jails has spurned a new movement in how the three correctional facilities are staffed. No longer are certified correctional officers a prerequisite to staff the facility's control rooms. Since staff members that work the correctional facilities control rooms have no physical contact with the inmate population, it is not necessary for the staff member to be certified. This change lessens the costs of salaries and benefits. In 1996, the process began of changing certified correctional officers, through attrition, to Correctional Support Personnel. This change has resulted in a substantial savings of tax dollars, annually.

Each facility must by law, feed the inmates, take care of their medical and mental health needs, provide laundry service and a canteen service. In an effort to save tax dollars, the inmate medical service, food service and canteen service are contracted out to private vendors. In an unprecedented move, major contracts for inmate services were placed for re-bid in 1998. The new contracts for these services resulted in a savings in tax dollars of over 3 million dollars. To further offset some of the jail costs, inmates are required to pay a subsistence fee of $2.00 per day, and various medical co-pays.

Cost savings initiated by the Department of Corrections over the last few years have lowered the costs of daily incarceration from a $81.31, per inmate, in fiscal year 1996/97 to $ 68.73, per inmate, in fiscal year 1998/99. These are just some examples of programs and services, which have been instituted to provide the citizens of Palm Beach County with a safe and secure correctional system.

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