Florida Senate - 2017 COMMITTEE AMENDMENT
Bill No. SR 1440
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LEGISLATIVE ACTION
Senate . House
Comm: RCS .
04/04/2017 .
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The Committee on Judiciary (Rouson) recommended the following:
1 Senate Amendment (with title amendment)
2
3 Delete everything after the resolving clause
4 and insert:
5 That the Senate regrets that the treatment of boys who were
6 sent to the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys and the Okeechobee
7 School was cruel, unjust, and a violation of human decency, and
8 acknowledges this shameful part of the State of Florida’s
9 history.
10 BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Senate apologizes to the
11 boys who were confined to Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys and
12 the Okeechobee School and their family members for the wrongs
13 committed against them by employees of the State of Florida.
14 BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Senate expresses its
15 commitment to ensuring that children who have been placed in the
16 State of Florida’s care are protected from abuse and violations
17 of fundamental human decency.
18
19 ================= T I T L E A M E N D M E N T ================
20 And the title is amended as follows:
21 Delete everything before the resolving clause
22 and insert:
23 Senate Resolution
24 A resolution acknowledging the abuses experienced by
25 children confined in the Arthur G. Dozier School for
26 Boys and the Florida School for Boys at Okeechobee and
27 expressing the Senate’s regret for such abuses and its
28 commitment to ensure that the children of this state
29 are protected from the abuses and violations of
30 fundamental human decency.
31
32 WHEREAS, the Florida State Reform School, also called the
33 Florida Industrial School for Boys and later known as the Arthur
34 G. Dozier School for Boys, referred to in this resolution as
35 “Dozier School,” was opened by the State of Florida in 1900 in
36 Marianna to house children who had committed minor criminal
37 offenses, such as incorrigibility, truancy, and smoking, as well
38 as more serious offenses such as theft and murder, and
39 WHEREAS, many of the children who were sent to Dozier
40 School were sentenced without legal representation before the
41 court, often without a known basis for being sent to the school
42 or a specific duration of confinement, and
43 WHEREAS, within the first 13 years of Dozier School’s
44 operation, six state-led investigations were conducted in
45 response to reports of children being chained to walls in irons,
46 severely beaten, and used for child labor, and
47 WHEREAS, throughout Dozier School’s history, reports of
48 abuse, suspicious deaths, and threats of closure plagued the
49 school, and
50 WHEREAS, many former students of Dozier School have sworn
51 under oath that they were beaten at a facility located on the
52 school grounds known as the “White House,” and
53 WHEREAS, a psychologist employed at Dozier School testified
54 under oath at a 1958 United States Senate Judiciary Committee
55 hearing that boys at the school were beaten by an administrator,
56 that the blows were severe and dealt with a great deal of force
57 with a full arm swing over the head and down, that a leather
58 strap approximately ten inches long was used, and that the
59 beatings were “brutality,” and
60 WHEREAS, a former Dozier School employee stated in
61 interviews with law enforcement that, in 1962, several employees
62 of the school were removed from the facility based upon
63 allegations that they made sexual advances toward boys at the
64 facility, and
65 WHEREAS, a forensic investigation funded by the Florida
66 Legislature and conducted from 2013 to 2016 by the University of
67 South Florida found incomplete records regarding deaths and
68 burials that occurred at Dozier School between 1900 and 1960,
69 and that families were often notified after the child was buried
70 or denied access to their remains at the time of burial, and
71 WHEREAS, the excavations conducted as part of the forensic
72 investigation yielded 55 burial sites, 24 more sites than
73 reported in official records, and
74 WHEREAS, given the lack of documentation and contradictions
75 in the historical record, questions persist regarding the
76 identity of persons buried at Dozier School and the
77 circumstances surrounding their deaths, and
78 WHEREAS, in 1955, the State of Florida opened a new reform
79 school in Okeechobee, called the Florida School for Boys at
80 Okeechobee, referred to in this resolution as “the Okeechobee
81 School,” to address overcrowding at Dozier School, and staff of
82 Dozier School were transferred to the Okeechobee School where
83 similar practices were implemented, and
84 WHEREAS, many former students of the Okeechobee School have
85 sworn under oath that they were beaten at a facility on school
86 grounds known as the “Adjustment Unit,” and
87 WHEREAS, former Governor Claude Kirk toured Dozier School
88 in 1968 and stated, “If one of your kids were kept in such
89 circumstances, you’d be up there with rifles,” and
90 WHEREAS, Dozier School was closed in 2011 after
91 investigations by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and
92 the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of
93 Justice, and
94 WHEREAS, more than 500 former students of Dozier School and
95 the Okeechobee School have come forward with reports of
96 physical, mental, and sexual abuse by school staff during the
97 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, and resulting trauma that has endured
98 throughout their adult lives; NOW THEREFORE,