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Liberty Behavioral Health, the private company that runs the center,
insists that security is now under control and that problems at the center are
no different from those found at any institution of a "correctional nature."
"To characterize the facility as rife with trouble . . . is a gross
exaggeration," the company wrote in a response to The Miami Herald's
findings.
But the center never was intended to be a correctional facility,
according to the legislation. In fact, the Department of Children
& Families, which hired Liberty to operate the center, told The
Miami Herald that it has "identified numerous deficiencies in Liberty's
performance," including inadequate supervision and "mismanagement''
of security.
Several men recently interviewed at the center by The Miami Herald
said disruptions and fights continue at the facility. "This place
is a powder keg ready to explode," said Richard Lincoln, an offender
at the center.
Diagnosed as a pedophile, Lincoln should be learning to control
the impulses that landed him behind bars 10 years ago.
But because he already served his sentence, the state can't force him to take
part in treatment -- a loophole in the law that helps explain why so many men
are not in counseling.
Another explanation: The state pays for only 150 of the roughly
520 men to receive therapy.
That leaves six out of every 10 offenders with nothing to do --
posing a serious challenge for those trying to keep order.
Lincoln spends his days napping, watching television, listening to the radio
and eating three meals a day -- costing taxpayers nearly $50,000 a year in
the process.
"Basically, there's nothing for me to do here," said Lincoln, 59,
a lanky man with long, stark-white hair and a gray mustache who
was convicted of two counts of lewd and lascivious acts against
a child in 1995. Sent to the center in 2000, he has done more time
there than he did in prison but still refuses to participate in
treat- ment.
His sentiment -- that therapy does not offer a way out -- is shared
by hundreds of others at the facility, with the numbers tripling
since 1999 and exceeding more than 300 last year.
Interviews with men at the center reveal several reasons: Their
records are not kept confidential and can be used against them at
their civil commitment trials, and the state has no criteria for
graduating them from treatment.
Steven Hoo, 50, convicted of molesting a 2-year-old girl, waited
six years before he entered treatment because he thought that sharing
personal details in therapy would hinder his efforts for release.
"And therein lies the problem," Summers said. "You have violent
sex offenders that have nothing to do all day long and all night
long."
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