ORLANDO, Fla. — Visiting hours to prisoners in Florida are a crucial way they connect with loved ones, but a new rule being proposed by the Florida Department of Corrections could cut those hours in half.
On Wednesday, FDC proposed a set of new modifications to its visiting procedures, including adopting a rotation schedule for prisoners that would limit visitation days to every other weekend at certain correctional institutions deemed necessary by the department.
“This would be devastating to my family,” Catherine Hemperley said.
She visits her husband every Sunday at Tomoka Correctional Institution in Daytona Beach. He is 30 months away from serving a 15-year sentence. Together they have a 23-year-old daughter and 4-month-old grandson who visit every other weekend.
“These visits are everything to us. They keep us going,” she said. “I couldn’t imagine not being able to see my husband or him miss out on important time with our grandson.”
Currently, FDC’s standard practice allows weekly visitation hours between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. on each Saturday and Sunday, as well as on major holidays.
A rotation schedule that allows visitations to take place only every other weekend would cut the hours spent with loved ones in half, according to Denise Rock with the Florida Cares Charity Corp., a nonprofit that works with incarcerated people and their families.
“There’s always a steady flow of people at least from what I’ve seen in the southern and central regions in Florida,” Rock said. The proposal would affect an incarcerated person’s “mother, father, sister, brother, wife, kids. ... They didn’t commit the crime, but they’re the silent victim to all this.”
The possible rule is similar to a controversial proposal in 2018 that was withdrawn after the Joint Administrative Procedure Committee questioned if restrictions complied with the department’s commitment to encouraging family reunification. The 2018 proposal also drew the ire of loved ones and family members of people in prison.
A representative at FDC was not immediately available to comment on the most recent proposals.
The modifications also reduce the amount of nonfamily-member visits. No more than five of the allotted 15 visitors may be nonfamily members, according to the proposed policy. Current standards give behaving prisoners the flexibility to include family and nonfamily members.
Catherine Ragonese worries for her son’s mental well-being if visitation rights are restricted at Calhoun Correctional Institution, located in the Panhandle.
“Not seeing your family is just so difficult,” she said. “Every time we go to see him he’s happy to see us, happy to see his dad, because he worries that we’re getting older and he’s just afraid that, you know, something bad is going to happen to us while he’s in there.”
Rock said reducing visits and isolating prisoners isn’t rehabilitative. She believes increasing visits has a better track record of improving behavior and reducing reoffending.
Wardens may worry about visitors bringing contraband, she said, but that is “a two-way street.”
“It doesn’t make sense to punish the greater portion of people not doing that, they just want to connect with loved ones in peace and be left alone,” said Rock.
In order to determine whether a standard or modified visitation schedule designation would be put into practice at state prisons, FDC will consider a number of details including, sufficient staffing levels, parking capacity, the number of visitor cancellations, and the number of reported disturbances and incidents, among other factors.
In a statement, Molly Gill, vice president of policy for Families Against Mandatory Minimums, an organization focused on sentencing reform, said Florida’s prison system is “perpetually understaffed.”
“Cutting family ties to people in prison isn’t going to solve understaffing problems, and it’s not going to help reduce crime, either. We need meaningful sentencing and prison reform from the state legislature, now.”
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