TAMPA, Fla. — There's a story in Florida no one is telling. The people in this story are not innocent—they broke the law—and in the eyes of society, they deserve to pay a price.
But after those behind bars serve their time, they face a world that no longer wants them. Many will end up right back in prison.
“I fell into the downward spiral of life,” said Edward McCardy, who spent decades in and out of prison.
For McCardy, that downward spiral began after his knee operation. First came the pain medications, then the addiction.
“That welcomed me into a door that I shouldn't have ever gone into. But all in all, it just transformed me from the person that people knew, the guy family members knew, to somebody they didn't recognize,” said McCardy.
His family started to drift away as he fell further into a life of crime.
“After my license got suspended, then the drugs came in, so I say maybe 20 times,” explained McCardy.
“It was in and out, in and out. It was just a slap on the wrist. I will say there was no way of rehabilitation in prison,” McCardy added. “You're around a whole bunch of convicts. They are not giving you anything to help you try to stimulate some kind of forward movement."
Many people experience a similar never-ending cycle like McCardy. But a Tampa non-profit is dedicated to breaking the cycle of incarceration.
“At the end of the day, the very people who are behind those razor gates, these are mothers, these are fathers, these are somebody’s children. You talk about elderly population—these are somebody's grandparents,” said Robert Blount, the president of ABE Brown Ministries.
ABE Brown Ministries offers former inmates everything from job training and education to mental health services and transitional housing.
“We go into the prisons, and we share the gospel. That's the cornerstone of what we do. But in that message is a message of hope. And so, it's one thing to go inside and deliver this message of hope. It's a whole different beast to be able to complement that message of hope with tangible opportunities for people to live out their freedom and society,” said Blount.
The kind of results that McCardy is already seeing. He told ABC Action News he’s learned more in the past two months at ABE Brown Ministries than he did during his entire two decades in and out of jail.
“People misconstrue that prison is better for people, and it's not. It's really not. If you send a man to prison for an extended time—I went for 15 years—if the man doesn’t want to change, I don't care if you give him 100 years, he's not going to change,” said McCardy.
McCardy believes prison is "not there to help you."
"It's actually there to keep you housed. It's like a housing facility. It's not actually prison," he continued.
According to the Florida Policy Project, a new non-partisan think tank launched by former State Senator Jeff Brandes, the numbers back up what McCardy is saying.
It found more than 90% of the 82,000 people incarcerated in Florida prisons will eventually return to our communities, and over 60% of people released will be rearrested within three years.
The report offers six evidence-based solutions to reduce recidivism. Those include:
- Employment programs
- Education
- Addiction treatment
- Mental health assistance
- Staying connected with family
- Transitional housing
While this all sounds expensive, think about the cost Florida taxpayers already pay to maintain the aging prison system. Last fiscal year, that cost was $2.4 billion.
The mission of the Florida Policy Project is to objectively inform state lawmakers about the problems Florida is facing, which can then help them make better policy decisions and pass laws that are based on facts, not politics.
“First of all, I think there's complete bipartisan support for some criminal justice reform activities. And I think that's an important point," Brandes said. "But secondly, what I'm showing to them is just best practices. We're showing best practices; they show better outcomes. Now, if they choose to ignore that, then they're simply putting the public at a safety risk.”
As for McCardy, his journey back to a productive, crime-free life is just beginning at 58 years old.
“Right now, the person that you see sitting before you is a man has been broken down, remolded and transformed into something that actually is better than I was when I went in,” said McCardy.
The Florida Policy Project also looked at the surging elderly population inside Florida prisons. They found it’s growing faster than the rest of the prisons in the United States.
If you’d like to read the full report from the Florida Policy Project, clickhere.
