Work and Incarceration in Florida
If you ask people who have served time in prison how they got through it, many of them will tell you that the key was to stay busy. The cliché that you see in cartoons where prisoners draw tick marks on the walls of their prison cells to mark how much time of their sentence has passed is not too far from the truth. Some people spend their time in prison reading, journaling, or exercising, and when their sentence finishes, they emerge with knowledge or with physical fitness that they might not have achieved in an equivalent amount of time on the outside. Do not think for a minute, though, that being in prison means that you will have vast amounts of free time, or that you will spend your days sitting in a prison cell and doing nothing. Most inmates in Florida have jobs within the prison. Their daily routines are built around work. The current laws about work performed by incarcerated people reflect the goals of an incarceration experience that is conducive to living a law-abiding life after one’s release and also to preventing violence and abuse inside correctional facilities. If the state is offering you a plea deal that involves serving time in state prison, albeit for a shorter time than the sentence you would get if convicted at trial, your lawyer can help you make an informed decision about whether to fight the charges or accept the plea agreement. Here, our Miami criminal defense lawyer explains the laws about labor participation by prison inmates in Florida.
Can Florida Prisoners Earn Money?
The scenes you see in movies where prisoners spend the whole day locked in a cell block except for a brief visit to the prison yard, where they exchange threats and menacing glances with each other, are maximum security prisons. Most prisons are not like that. Florida law requires able-bodied inmates in minimum security and medium security prisons to work 40 hours per week, like full-time employees do on the outside. The goal is to prevent incarcerated people from being idle. The prison assigns tasks to each inmate. Much of the work takes place inside the prison. Inmates might be assigned to cook meals in the cafeteria or clean the common area of the prison. They might also be assigned to manufacture items for sale. Sometimes the prison might assign groups of inmates to work offsite.
Prisoners are entitled to payment for the work they perform during their sentences, although the pay is lower than what one would earn for performing a similar job on the outside. The money goes into the inmate’s account or to a bank account belonging to a family member of the inmate on the outside. If restitution is part of the convicted defendant’s sentence, the payment for work performed in prison first goes to pay the restitution. If the inmate satisfies the restitution obligations while incarcerated, any other money he or she earns from prison labor is the inmate’s to keep. Restitution is monetary compensation paid to the people harmed by the defendant’s crime. It is common in financial crime cases, but courts also sometimes order it in violent crime cases.
Restrictions on Labor Participation by People Incarcerated in Florida
Sometimes the state orders prisoners not to work. This only happens when working would pose a danger to the inmate himself or herself or to other inmates. Prisoners in maximum security prisons do not work, because they have been convicted of violent crimes or have engaged in violence while incarcerated, and the state does not want them interacting closely with other inmates, as coworkers do in the workplace, because this would likely lead to more violence. Likewise, some inmates in medium security or minimum-security prisons are exempt from work requirements. These exemptions are because of health-related limitations on the prisoner’s ability to work. Inmates who have passed retirement age do not work, and neither do those who have disabilities that prevent them from working. As with disability accommodations for workers on the outside, the prison might assign you to work if you have a disability, but it will assign you to tasks that your disability does not prevent you from performing.
Can You Keep Your Job If You Get a Criminal Conviction?
The next best thing to getting a probation only sentence is a prison sentence where you can continue to work at your job. If you are serving time in a halfway house, you are allowed to work offsite during your scheduled work hours and return to the institution during the hours and days when you are not working. This is economically the best option, because your employer continues to pay you the same wage or salary as you earned before your conviction.
Contact Our Criminal Defense Attorneys
A South Florida criminal defense lawyer can help you think through the economic consequences of accepting a plea deal or fighting your charges. Contact Ratzan & Faccidomo in Miami, Florida for a confidential consultation about your case.
Source:
leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0900-0999/0946/0946.html
