TALLAHASSEE — Florida officials are reviewing eligibility for a St. Petersburg-based prison labor program after a participant killed a correctional officer at a Daytona Beach prison.
Officer Donna Fitzgerald was stabbed to death June 25 at Tomoka Correctional Institution after she was attacked by an inmate who fashioned a knife made from sheet metal. Enoch Hall, 39, serving two life sentences for the rape and kidnapping of a 66-year-old Pensacola woman, faces a first-degree murder charge and has been moved to Florida State Prison in Starke.
Despite a rap sheet showing a history of violence toward women, Hall passed a security clearance to work in a heavy-equipment shop for PRIDE, the nonprofit that has provided jobs for inmates for nearly three decades.
"We're reviewing all of our policies and procedures," said state corrections spokesman Gretl Plessinger. She said the state and PRIDE work jointly to determine an inmate's eligibility for a prison job.
PRIDE, created by business executive Jack Eckerd, aims to teach skills to inmates that will help them readjust to society, such as reporting for work on time, following directions and learning a trade.
By law, 40 percent of inmates selected for PRIDE must be serving sentences longer than 10 years as a way to fulfill another of PRIDE's duties: reducing inmate idleness. Of the 2,500 inmates working for PRIDE, less than 10 percent are serving life sentences, PRIDE spokesman Foster Harbin said.
Harbin said his firm would support whatever changes the state will recommend, including whether a "lifer" with a violent past should be in a work program available to only a tiny fraction of the prison population.
Robert Sloan, a former Florida inmate and critic of PRIDE, said in a letter to the St. Petersburg Times: "There is absolutely no place in the prison industrial training programs for inmates with life or long sentences. … Most lifers will never receive a release and should therefore not be considered for such a program."
Harbin said the death of Fitzgerald, who was attacked when she found Hall hiding in a work shed about 7:30 p.m., was the first violent incident involving a PRIDE participant in the program's 27-year history.
The agency said that to be eligible for PRIDE work, an inmate cannot have been cited in a disciplinary report for six months.
Steve Bousquet can be reached at bousquet@sptimes.com or (850) 224-7263.
News
