At a House Justice Appropriations Subcommittee meeting last week, Inch said the state has a “correction’s system in crisis” where staff retention for correctional officers remains an “ongoing and severe” problem. Even six years ago, the state’s Department of Corrections noted that there were 700 correctional officer vacancies, which was already an uptick from 554 vacancies in 2006.

Despite the health concerns about Covid-19 itself among inmates and the prison staff, the pandemic has allowed the state to temporarily control its prison population — a critical release valve for lawmakers and officials like Inch. In the summer of 2019, the system had more than 95,000 inmates, according to the state. That dropped to about 82,000 by October 2020, well into the Covid-19 crisis. But Florida operates the country’s third-largest state prison system and the vaccine rollout could create pressure to fill facilities back up as public concerns, nationally, about crime rise.

On top of that, the state already expects the prison population to increase by next year, and thousands more inmates are projectedto enter the system than exit it over the next five years. And some 30,000 backlogged felony cases until further notice will come due at some point.

“We are basically holding [the prison system] together by spit and chewing gum,” state Sen. Jeff Brandes (R-St. Petersburg) told state legislators in a meeting last month.

At the meeting, Inch said that roughly 46 percent of employees recruited end up leaving by the 12-month mark. Each time an officer leaves, the state takes a financial hit with money sunk on recruitment and training that involves paying another officer overtime to oversee another.

He requested $31.1 million in funding for the 2021-2022 fiscal year to specifically to address the working environment, low pay and lack of training he says has kept the number of correctional officers low. Inch also spoke about mental health concerns for correctional officers. Last month, an officer died by suicide after bringing a gun onto the compound at the Federal Correctional Complex in Coleman.

But while Inch and Florida lawmakers, have plans to increase state spending to retain prison staff, some critics believe leaders are papering over real pain points for prison staff.

Baiardi, the union official, has spent a combined 30 years working for his organization, and employed as an officer at different prisons across the state.

“The No.1 reason is the money,” he said over the phone. “Most of the [prison] staff would say that they are being treated horribly. There are some wardens who are doing good, but there are officers who are afraid to speak up because of retaliation. I mean, these are people who used to work on death row, who are scared.”

Baiardi, who said he’s seen the same staffing issues plague prisons for decades, also takes issue with state legislators.

To illustrate his point about Inch and others not really addressing the sources of distress, he mentioned DOC’s plans to reduce shifts from 12 hours to 8.5 as a way to retain more employees. The PBA has criticized the idea for years, claiming that it’s not what workers want. Shortening shifts, Baiardi said, would require COs to turn up for work more frequently make sure they satisfy their overall hours and be potentially more disruptive to their lives.

“I feel as if there’s been a certain amount of favoritism, and the moving of shift hours has made a lot of people unhappy. Under Inch, we’ve seen these shifts change, and only the favorites would typically get weekends off,” he said.

Baiardi said that the lack of legislative action has given the corrections department too much control and not enough oversight.

“It’s almost like their own little kingdom now — the higher ups in the DOC are set in their ways and have tunnel vision, but I couldn’t tell you what their priorities are,” he said. “But it’s not the correctional officers. All I’m saying is, if this was a private business, something would have been done a long time ago.”

DOC spokesperson Michelle Grady told POLITICO that “the department’s priority is the recruitment and retention of corrections officers. That’s always been our top priority.”

For critics of the broader criminal justice system, fewer prisoners is the better path for the state.

“Florida has a mass incarceration problem, and our prisons are overcrowded,” state Rep. Anna Eskamani (D-Orlando) said in an interview. “We don’t have enough correctional officers that are meeting the ratio, and they’re not very experienced either — they know less about the prisons than the inmates do.”

She has been trying to repeal the mandatory minimum sentencing for drug-related offenses since being elected into office. Last year, one of these bills died at a Criminal Justice subcommittee in March.

“Hard on crime remains the status quo,” Eskamani said. “There is this expectation that the number of people in prison creates a sense of safety, but instead it can create danger in our prisons when they’re understaffed, especially when we think of the racial disparities with people of color.”

Eskamani has since filed HB6029 last month, which she says has received some bipartisan support, for this legislative session. If enacted, it would use rehabilitation programs in lieu of traditional prison sentences for certain drug-related activity.