Inmate Discipline

The purpose of Order 639 is to explain how JSO responds when an inmate violates a rule inside a Department of Corrections facility. The policy states that discipline is used to address rule violations, improve inmate behavior, protect the safety and security of the facility, and meet legal requirements. It also states that discipline cannot be arbitrary, retaliatory, or used for revenge. Corporal punishment is prohibited, and the policy specifically recognizes that not every rule violation requires a sanction.

When an officer observes a violation, the officer first decides how the behavior should be handled. For minor violations, the officer may educate or counsel the inmate, issue a verbal warning, make a notation in the inmate's record, or begin the formal disciplinary process. Officers are encouraged to use counseling or education first when dealing with minor noncompliance. Where video is available, the officer must review the recording before deciding which disciplinary option is appropriate.

If the violation is serious, or if the officer determines that formal discipline is necessary, an Electronic Disciplinary Report is created. Order 613 then controls much of the investigation and documentation. The inmate normally receives at least 24 hours' written notice before the hearing. The hearing is conducted by an officer who did not witness the incident and did not participate in the investigation. The inmate may explain what happened, request witnesses or evidence, and receive assistance when a language barrier, disability, illiteracy, or another problem prevents the inmate from adequately participating. Afterwards, the hearing officer decides whether the inmate committed the violation and recommends a penalty. The inmate receives a written decision and may appeal.

These procedures generally follow the Florida Model Jail Standards. The standards require written notice, an uninvolved hearing officer, an opportunity to present relevant evidence, a written decision, an appeal, and a disciplinary-confinement term proportionate to the offense. Florida permits up to 30 days of disciplinary confinement per incident.

Appendix A then lists the prohibited conduct and the maximum penalties that may be imposed for each rule. The penalties may include disciplinary confinement, loss of gain time, or both. These are maximum penalties rather than mandatory penalties, so the hearing officer may recommend less. However, the policy gives much less direction for deciding what the actual punishment should be once the violation has been proven.

The Nelson Mandela Rules require disciplinary sanctions to be proportionate to the offense. They also require prison officials to consider whether mental illness or developmental disability contributed to the conduct before discipline is imposed.

Because of this, Order 639 should be reviewed in two parts. The first part is whether JSO has a fair process for deciding whether an inmate committed a rule violation. The second part is whether JSO has a fair and consistent process for deciding how much punishment should follow. The policy contains considerably more structure for the first decision than the second.

One of the stronger portions of Order 639 is that a minor rule violation does not automatically require formal discipline. Officers may educate or counsel the inmate, issue a verbal warning, or document a minor infraction instead. This gives officers a way to correct minor behavior without immediately placing the inmate into a formal disciplinary process. The policy also states that counseling should be delivered in a positive manner.

The requirement to review available video is another useful safeguard. When cameras are available, personnel must review the inmate's actions before deciding which disciplinary option is appropriate. This gives the officer an opportunity to compare the initial impression of the incident with a recording before deciding whether a formal charge is necessary.

The formal disciplinary process also contains several protections. Under Order 613, the investigating officer cannot have been involved in the incident or named in the disciplinary report. The investigation includes the inmate's version of the incident, witness information, attempts to verify the facts, camera information when applicable, and an explanation when a witness was not contacted.

The hearing officer is also separated from the incident. The officer conducting the hearing cannot have witnessed the violation or participated in the investigation. The inmate receives advance notice of the charges and normally receives at least 24 hours to prepare. The inmate may make a statement and request witnesses or evidence. When the inmate has a language barrier, disability, is illiterate, or otherwise cannot adequately understand or participate in the hearing, assistance must be offered.

Afterwards, the hearing officer must base the decision on information obtained through the hearing process. The decision and the evidence relied upon are documented, and the inmate is offered an appeal. These protections are consistent with the procedural requirements contained in the Florida Model Jail Standards.

There is also a second review after the hearing. The facility administrator or designee reviews the disposition to ensure that it conforms to the rules. The reviewing official may reduce the recommended punishment but cannot increase it. Florida's Model Jail Standards contain the same limitation.

Finally, the policy clearly states that discipline cannot be arbitrary, retaliatory, or used for revenge. That is an important rule because corrections officers have substantial control over the daily conditions of incarceration. Appendix A also lists maximum penalties rather than mandatory penalties, which allows a hearing officer to impose less when the actual circumstances are less serious. The weakness is that the policy provides very little guidance explaining how that discretion should be used consistently.

The first weakness is that several prohibited acts depend heavily on the officer's interpretation. Some rules are relatively specific. Possession of a weapon, escape, assault, arson, theft, and tampering with security equipment can usually be described through objective facts. Other rules are much broader. Examples include disrespect, disorderly conduct, attempt to manipulate staff, horse playing, insufficient work, obscene or profane behavior, and disobeying a verbal or written order.

Rule 6-1 is especially broad because it applies to any order given to an inmate by a staff member or other authorized person. The policy does not state that the order must be lawful, clearly communicated, reasonably related to a legitimate correctional purpose, within the employee's authority, and possible for the inmate to perform. Therefore, the same behavior can be treated differently depending on how the officer interprets the situation.

This matters because Order 639 gives the responding officer several choices before the formal disciplinary process even begins. For a minor violation, the officer may educate the inmate, give a warning, make a notation, or create a formal disciplinary report. The policy forbids retaliation and revenge, but those prohibitions do not prevent an officer who dislikes an inmate from using the discretion already built into the policy. An officer does not have to write that the purpose of the charge is retaliation. The officer can instead describe the inmate as disrespectful, disorderly, manipulative, uncooperative, or in violation of an order and then use an otherwise authorized disciplinary option.

This does not mean that every subjective charge is retaliatory or biased. It means that the policy makes improper motive difficult to identify when the underlying rule is broad and the officer has several lawful choices. Two inmates may engage in similar behavior and receive different treatment without the written policy requiring an explanation for the difference. Personal conflict, prior interactions, racial or gender stereotypes, disability-related behavior, or other conscious or unconscious bias can therefore affect whether the disciplinary process begins.

The second problem is the penalty table itself. Appendix A does not establish a consistent relationship between the seriousness of the conduct and the maximum punishment. Horse playing may result in up to 25 days of disciplinary confinement and 20 days of lost gain time, while fighting carries a lower maximum of 20 days of confinement and 15 days of gain time. A spoken, written, or gestured threat also carries only 20 days of confinement. Theft of property worth less than $50 carries up to 25 days of confinement, while theft of property worth more than $50 carries only 20 days, although the larger theft has a greater gain-time penalty. Disorderly conduct permits 30 days of confinement, while robbery or attempted robbery permits 25 days. Disobeying any verbal or written order also permits 30 days of confinement, which is the same confinement maximum used for several much more dangerous offenses.

These are maximum penalties rather than automatic sentences. However, the maximums still show how the written policy ranks the offenses. Order 639 does not explain why horseplay may receive more confinement than fighting, why lower-value theft may receive more confinement than higher-value theft, or why an ordinary refusal to follow an order may receive the same confinement maximum as much more serious conduct. Because of this, it is difficult to determine what principle was used to create the penalty table.

The third weakness is that there is no sentencing rubric. Once an inmate is found in violation, the hearing officer may recommend any punishment up to the maximum. The policy does not establish a normal sanction range for each type of offense. It also does not identify standard aggravating and mitigating factors that explain why a punishment should be higher or lower.

This creates another place where personal judgment can affect the outcome. The responding officer decides whether the case enters the formal disciplinary system. Afterwards, the hearing officer decides how much punishment to impose. Therefore, discretion exists both before and after the hearing. A hearing officer who views an inmate negatively may impose a punishment closer to the maximum while another inmate with similar conduct receives much less. Both decisions may still fit within the written policy.

Order 639 states that discipline cannot be arbitrary. However, the policy does not require JSO to determine whether similarly situated inmates actually receive similar outcomes. The Fulton County Jail consent decree provides one comparison. It requires sanctions to be proportional, progressive, and purposeful and requires system-wide tracking of restrictive-housing use, including demographic information such as race, gender, disability status, and age.

Another weakness is that Order 639 does not state the evidentiary standard used at the disciplinary hearing. The policy explains what evidence may be considered and requires the decision to be based on the hearing record, but it does not state how much evidence is required before an inmate is found in violation. This becomes especially important when the sanction includes loss of gain time. Florida law allows gain time to be forfeited for misconduct, which means the disciplinary decision can affect the inmate's release date.

Mental illness and disability are also not fully incorporated into the disciplinary decision. Several listed violations can overlap with behavior caused by mental illness, developmental disability, or another medical condition. These include failure to maintain hygiene, disobeying orders, disorderly conduct, insufficient work, malingering, and conduct described as manipulation. Rule 10-10 also includes self-mutilation. In some cases that term may describe prohibited body modification. In other cases, self-injury may be part of a psychiatric crisis.

Order 639 does not establish a general requirement for qualified health personnel to determine whether mental illness or disability contributed to the behavior before serious punishment is imposed. The Nelson Mandela Rules require prison officials to consider whether mental illness or developmental disability contributed to the conduct.

The Fulton County Jail consent decree provides a more specific example. It requires consultation with qualified mental-health staff before disciplining people with mental-health disabilities. When the conduct resulted from mental illness, the person is not disciplined for that behavior. Even when discipline remains appropriate, mental-health staff consider whether the proposed sanction would interfere with treatment or cause psychological harm.

PREA uses the same general principle for sexual-abuse discipline. It requires the facility to consider whether mental disability or mental illness contributed to the conduct. It also states that a good-faith sexual-abuse report cannot be treated as lying simply because the allegation was not later substantiated. Order 639 contains separate offenses for lying and providing false information, so an explicit PREA exception would make this protection clearer.

Disciplinary confinement creates another concern. Order 639 allows up to 30 days of disciplinary confinement per incident. That follows the maximum permitted by the Florida Model Jail Standards.

The Nelson Mandela Rules are more restrictive. They define solitary confinement as 22 hours or more each day without meaningful human contact and define more than 15 consecutive days as prolonged solitary confinement. Prolonged solitary confinement is prohibited under those rules.

Order 639 does not explain the daily conditions of disciplinary confinement. Therefore, this policy alone does not establish whether JSO disciplinary confinement meets the Mandela Rules' definition of solitary confinement. That requires the companion housing policy. However, if the inmate spends at least 22 hours per day without meaningful human contact, a 30-day disciplinary sentence would exceed the 15-day international limit.

The U.S. Department of Justice also recommends graded penalties based on offense seriousness and alternatives to restrictive housing. Its guidance reserves disciplinary segregation primarily for serious violence, escape, or conduct creating a substantial threat to institutional safety rather than low-level misconduct.

Order 639 instead allows disciplinary confinement for several nonviolent offenses.

The criminal-prosecution section creates another serious consequence. Order 639 allows repeated institutional rule violations to become a separate criminal charge under Florida Statute §951.23. Florida law makes repeated knowing violations of specified jail rules a second-degree misdemeanor, and the punishment runs consecutively to the person's other sentence.

Florida law creates the offense, but JSO still decides when a person's disciplinary history should be referred for criminal prosecution. Order 639 requires verification of the prior violations but gives little direction for deciding when prosecution is appropriate instead of continued administrative discipline.

Finally, the policy requires an annual review of the written rules but does not require an annual review of how the rules are actually enforced. Therefore, JSO may determine that the rules themselves remain acceptable without determining whether the same rules are being used differently by different officers, hearing officers, housing units, or facilities.

The first change could be to define the more subjective violations more clearly. Rules such as disrespect, disorderly conduct, attempt to manipulate staff, horse playing, and disobeying orders could identify the behavior that must actually occur before the rule applies. For example, the disobeying-orders rule could require that the order be lawful, clearly communicated, reasonably related to a legitimate correctional purpose, within the employee's authority, and possible for the inmate to perform. The policy could then distinguish intentional refusal from inability to comply, misunderstanding, disability-related behavior, or conflicting instructions.

Afterwards, Appendix A could be reorganized around a severity rubric instead of assigning a separate maximum punishment to each offense without explaining the relationship between them. The severity level could follow the actual harm or security risk created by the conduct.

The lowest level could include minor administrative and housekeeping violations that do not involve violence, a meaningful security threat, or significant property loss. These violations could normally be handled through education, warning, counseling, or limited privilege restrictions rather than disciplinary confinement.

The next level could include nonviolent intentional noncompliance or disruption. This could include ordinary disrespect, profanity, minor disturbances, minor horseplay, or routine refusal to comply. Formal discipline could remain available when necessary, particularly when the conduct is repeated, but restrictive housing would not normally be used.

A third level could include significant misconduct that creates a meaningful safety, property, or institutional-security concern. A fourth level could include serious violence, significant threats, serious contraband, escape-related conduct, or major intentional property damage. The highest level could include conduct involving deadly weapons, serious bodily injury, sexual violence, arson, escape, explosives, or a comparable danger.

Under this type of system, horseplay would not begin with a greater punishment range than fighting unless the actual circumstances created a greater danger. Likewise, a minor refusal to follow an ordinary instruction would not begin in the same range as assault with a deadly weapon.

Each severity level could then have a normal sanction range. The hearing officer could move within that range based on defined aggravating and mitigating circumstances. Aggravating factors could include actual injury, use of a weapon, intentional creation of a serious security threat, repeated similar violations, significant property damage, or planning. Mitigating factors could include unclear instructions, limited ability to comply, lack of intent, mental illness, developmental disability, provocation, unusual circumstances, or a previously good disciplinary history.

When the hearing officer departs from the normal range, the reason could be documented. This would not remove discretion. It would require the officer to explain why similar cases were treated differently.

The same approach could help address retaliation, revenge, and bias. Order 639 already prohibits those motives. The policy could make the prohibition easier to enforce by requiring objective offense definitions, normal sanction ranges, written reasons for departures, and periodic comparisons of disciplinary outcomes. If one officer uses formal discipline far more often than officers working in similar assignments, or if one hearing officer regularly imposes higher sanctions for the same offenses, the difference could be reviewed.

The policy could also limit disciplinary confinement to cases where less restrictive penalties are not sufficient. The U.S. Department of Justice recommends graded disciplinary penalties and alternatives to segregation, with restrictive housing reserved primarily for serious violence, escape, or conduct creating a serious institutional-safety threat.

The Fulton County consent decree uses a similar approach. Restrictive housing may be imposed as discipline only after other reasonable sanctions are found insufficient.

If JSO disciplinary confinement meets the Mandela Rules' definition of solitary confinement, the policy could also limit the duration to no more than 15 consecutive days.

The disciplinary process could also require a mental-health or disability review when there is a reasonable indication that a condition contributed to the conduct. Qualified health personnel could determine whether the behavior resulted from mental illness, developmental disability, or another condition affecting the inmate's ability to understand or comply. If the conduct resulted from the condition, treatment or another response could replace punishment. If discipline remains appropriate, the health professional could advise whether the proposed sanction would interfere with treatment or create an additional health risk.

The policy could also identify the evidentiary standard used during disciplinary hearings. This would tell the inmate, hearing officer, and later reviewer how much evidence is required before a violation may be sustained.

A separate provision could protect good-faith PREA reporting. The policy could state that an allegation of sexual abuse made in good faith is not a violation of the lying or false-information rules simply because the investigation does not later substantiate the allegation.

The criminal-referral section could also contain a clearer standard. Repeated misconduct that qualifies under Florida law could still be referred for prosecution, but the policy could require a written explanation of why criminal prosecution is appropriate instead of continued administrative discipline.

Finally, JSO could review its disciplinary data each year. The review could compare how often each rule is charged, how often officers use warnings instead of formal discipline, how often charges are sustained, the sanctions imposed for each offense, use of disciplinary confinement, loss of gain time, appeals, reversals, and criminal referrals. The same information could be compared by officer, hearing officer, facility, housing unit, and shift. Where legally and practically appropriate, JSO could also compare outcomes by race, sex, age, disability status, and other demographic categories.

A statistical difference would not prove discrimination or retaliation. It would identify where additional review is necessary. This would give JSO a way to determine whether the rule against arbitrary and retaliatory discipline is actually producing similar treatment in similar cases.

Order 639 contains meaningful protections once an inmate enters the formal disciplinary process. The inmate receives notice of the charge. The allegation is investigated. The hearing officer did not witness the incident or conduct the investigation. The inmate may make a statement and request evidence or witnesses. The decision is documented, and the inmate may appeal.

The larger concern is how much discretion exists before and after that hearing. Before the hearing, the responding officer decides how the inmate's behavior should be described and whether it deserves counseling, a warning, a minor notation, or a formal disciplinary charge. Afterwards, the hearing officer decides how much punishment should be imposed within a broad range.

This makes the prohibition against retaliation and revenge more difficult to enforce than it first appears. The policy clearly says that an officer cannot use discipline to retaliate against an inmate or punish an inmate out of personal dislike. However, many of the actions an officer could use for that purpose are also actions the policy otherwise permits. An officer who dislikes an inmate can choose a formal charge instead of counseling. Broad rules such as disrespect, disorderly conduct, manipulation, or disobeying an order can then provide an authorized category for conduct that another officer might have handled informally.

The same problem exists at the punishment stage. Appendix A provides maximum penalties but generally does not provide a normal penalty. Therefore, a hearing officer can select a relatively low sanction in one case and a punishment close to the maximum in another case without necessarily violating the written policy. If the difference is caused by the officer's dislike of the inmate, bias, or a prior conflict, the result may still look procedurally valid unless JSO compares similar cases.

The penalty table itself makes that comparison more difficult because the offenses do not follow a clear hierarchy of harm. Horseplay has a higher confinement maximum than fighting. Lower-value theft has a higher confinement maximum than higher-value theft. Disorderly conduct has a higher confinement maximum than robbery. Disobeying an ordinary verbal or written order can carry the same 30-day confinement maximum used for much more dangerous conduct. Therefore, the hearing officer is exercising discretion inside a penalty table that is already inconsistent.

Gain-time penalties make these decisions more important because loss of gain time can affect how long a sentenced inmate remains incarcerated. Florida law permits forfeiture of gain time for misconduct.

Disciplinary confinement can also be a serious sanction. Florida permits up to 30 days per incident. The Nelson Mandela Rules prohibit solitary confinement lasting more than 15 consecutive days when the inmate is confined for at least 22 hours per day without meaningful human contact.

Order 639 does not explain what daily life in JSO disciplinary confinement actually looks like. Therefore, the current policy governing confinement conditions is still necessary before determining how JSO's 30-day maximum operates in practice.

The records created under Orders 639 and 613 should make several of these questions measurable. JSO can compare how often officers working in similar assignments use warnings instead of formal charges. It can compare which officers initiate the most subjective charges. It can compare sanctions imposed by different hearing officers for the same offense. It can compare disciplinary confinement, gain-time loss, appeals, and reversals between facilities and housing units. It can also determine whether demographic differences remain after comparing inmates charged with similar offenses and with similar disciplinary histories.

None of those differences would automatically establish that an officer acted out of bias, retaliation, or personal dislike. However, without those comparisons, the prohibition against arbitrary or retaliatory discipline depends largely on identifying an improper motive one case at a time. Because the policy gives officers substantial discretion while also prohibiting misuse of that discretion, JSO should have a way to determine whether the pattern of decisions matches the rule written on paper.