Posted on 10/08/2019 10:09:14 AM PDT by Red Badger
With a camera hidden in a hollowed-out Bible, peeking through the “O” of the word “Holy,” and a pair of rigged reading glasses, Scott Whitney secretly filmed the world behind bars, inside one of Florida’s notoriously dangerous prisons.
For four years, the 34-year-old convicted drug trafficker captured daily life on contraband cameras at the Martin Correctional Institution. He smuggled footage dating back to 2017 out of the prison, and titled the documentary “Behind Tha Barb Wire.” The video — given to the Miami Herald — allows the public to see with their own eyes the violence, rampant drug use and appalling conditions inside the prison.
As the Herald previously reported, Florida prisons have gone to great lengths to withhold video footage and other documents from news outlets, as well as family members of inmates who have died in custody.
To keep from releasing records, the agency has cited medical privacy laws and legal exemptions; sharing video footage specifically, it said, could jeopardize a facility’s security system and endanger prison personnel.
Whitney’s film, perhaps, underscored other reasons Florida’s Department of Corrections is keeping videos and records under wraps.
“We finna show y’all ... how we live in here that y’all ain’t seen,” said one inmate participating in the documentary.
From scene to scene, Whitney’s footage revealed an unkempt and decaying environment and demonstrated how little the officers care about their responsibilities or the inmates.
In one nighttime video narrated by Whitney in a hushed voice, a guard passed by his prison cell carrying a flashlight, yet never glanced inside. He remained oblivious to Whitney, who was openly filming at the time.
“They don’t check to see if we’re living, they don’t check to see if we’re safe,” Whitney said.
The video confirmed that homemade weapons and violence are hallmarks of life at Martin Correctional Institution, which the Herald said had 31 deaths in the past six years, including five homicides. Whitney modeled a makeshift stab-proof vest for the camera in one scene; in others, prisoners held a homemade knife and a “lock-and-belt weapon.”
The film documented mold covering the kitchen and mice popping in through crumbling walls. It also memorialized Hurricane Irma in 2017, when inmates from other prisons were transported to and housed at the facility, sleeping on the floor.
Most saliently, though, it captured the widespread drug use inside the prison.
“You got the war on drugs on the street, but once we get here you don’t care about the drugs,” he said to the camera.
Scene after scene showed inmates slumped over, stumbling to the ground, dragged across the floor and “twaking out.” One man lay face down in a pool of his own blood and another was rolled out on a gurney.
The culprit, Whitney said, was K2, a synthetic cannabinoid also known as “twak;” the Herald listed the drug as the most frequently confiscated contraband and the leading cause of overdose deaths.
Whitney continued, “You know you might not wake up any day you smoke that.”
The Florida Department of Corrections Office of Inspector General has opened an investigation into the video.
The agency wrote in an email to The Post on Monday: “The Department uses every tool at their disposal to mitigate violence and contraband within our institutions. Correctional Officers are diligent in their efforts to search inmates and common areas to eradicate weapons and remove dangerous and illegal contraband. At the forefront of our priorities is an agencywide effort to recruit and retain correctional officers statewide.”
Inmate-produced footage is extraordinarily rare, even more so when its trafficked out of a prison, Ron McAndrew, a prison consultant and former warden, told the Herald.
While gruesome and graphic photographs from inside prisons in Alabama and Mississippi were leaked and posted online earlier this year, the first example of footage from a contraband phone making its way online, he said, was in July at another Florida facility. A prison captain and two guards were arrested and fired after a video of officers beating an inmate was uploaded to YouTube.
Under Florida law, contraband cellphones can result in new felony charges and add prison time to an inmate’s sentence. Or, there’s the threat of solitary confinement — a fate Whitney has experienced, the Herald reported.
On September 19, Jordyn Gilley-Nixon, a prison reform advocate and former inmate, uploaded two minutes of Whitney’s footage to YouTube. Since then, prison officials have housed Whitney in isolation. If he’s released from solitary confinement, Whitney, whose drug trafficking sentence ends in 2040, promised to continue filming.
Prison should be humane. But it ain’t supposed to be Club Med.
A convicted drug dealer complaing about drugs in prison seems a little hypocritical.
He’s going to be in prison until 2040??!! Wow.
The biggest message I get without having seen the documentary is “Follow the Law and Stay Out Of Prison!” You don’t want to end up like this.
School kids and Juvie Halls need to show this as a
‘Scared Straight’ type of warning. “Don’t be that Thug!”
It’s not like in the Rap videos.
I dunno man that video looked like a prison in a third world country.
Worse than Rikers.
I don’t even expect prisons to be humane. I’m realistic.
But that’s a few notches below.
Drugs could be sealed off from prisons just as easy as a border wall could be built if people really wanted to.
Payoffs likely abound.
Well, it ain’t like they’re there for a vacation.
If there are problems at the prison, organize the convicts and clean it up or fix it.
Is there mold? Buy a few gallons of bleach and organize a cleaning party. Etc.
Don’t like the accommodations? You should have stayed at home.
I read the entire article
I still couldn’t give one shit about these animals.
“A convicted drug dealer complaing about drugs in prison seems a little hypocritical.”
Hypocritical like havingsomeone who drinks beer all day who then posts about illegal drugs?
The man is doing his time and is probably upset that Prism is worse than the outside and it’s almost impossible to perform when everyone’s all drugged out while being assaulted and raped.
There is no reason for prisons to be dilapidated shitholes. They said the top a ton of free labor. I don’t think inmates would mind working hard to improve their own conditions by doing things such as painting, making minor repairs, gardening, and landscaping. The only reason we find ourselves in the situation is that they will only do prison maintenance through vendor contracts which makes a lot of already rich people richer.
Official stance of the Correctional Facility:
“KILL THE MESSENGER!!”
the existence of drugs in prison is indicative of the helplessness of the WOD
Starts off the video by desecrating the Bible——cutting it up to hide a cell phone. It’s a freaking prison——what did you expect?
There’s a lot to be said for being ‘law-abiding’ Don’t pull the kinds of stunts that land your a#@ in slam!
It ain’t rocket science, man.
Then this comes out, how convenient. Democrat plan: felons can vote, all felons let out and dropped off in front of a polling place on Election day.
My county, west of 95 though.
The prison guards are corrupt as the inmates.
Best idea yet.
Prison is not like you see on TV shows- it’s much much worse.
And guards ... generally not the best humans
“ It’s a freaking prison——what did you expect?
We should expect the prison guards to do their job.
ping.
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