Abuse victims at Florida's Dozier Reform School could receive compensation under new legislation

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - For decades, former students who attended Florida's infamous Dozier Reform School for Boys detailed instances of brutal, continuous abuse. 

Now, state lawmakers are poised to try to right some of those wrongs. 

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Identical bills in Florida's House and Senate are advancing toward full votes in their respective chambers after unanimously passing key committee votes on Tuesday. This comes after years of discussion and stalled legislation. 

The now-defunct Dozier School outside Marianna, along with its overflow campus in Okeechobee, is the site where hundreds of children were mentally, physically, and sexually abused between 1940 and 1975.

New legislation would establish a program within the state's Department of Legal Affairs where living victims can apply for the fund. Victims would have to submit proof that they attended the schools and attest that they survived some form of abuse. 

It is unknown how many of the men who suffered abuse are still alive. Currently, the bills do not specify how much money they could receive for the trauma they survived.

Speaking before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Criminal and Civil Justice on Tuesday, survivors detailed the brutal beatings they endured as children. 

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"The first lick that I received when they sent me, they're sending me out of my mind," recalled former student Richard Huntly, who detailed his account in a 2020 memoir. "At 11 years old. I don't know what to do. I called (out for) my mom for help, (I called for) my dad. I asked God to please help me. I asked (the staff) to please stop hitting me."

Another survivor recounted the constant fear of sexual abuse by staff in the sleeping quarters. 

"We would lay there waiting because we knew what was getting ready to come," Bryant Middleton told committee members. "The monsters were coming. You could hear the state car coming up the gravel road. The crunching of gravel under tires. And as it got closer to the visit to the cottage, the children began to cry."

Ralph Freeman also addressed the committee.

"The state of Florida held us like slaves. I went to a field. I worked every day, and I never got paid for it," Freeman said. "But I see my country talking to other countries about making their children work for nothing. This happened on American soil, people. This happened in Florida."

Dozens of other boys were sent to the reform school and did not return home. Anthropologists from the University of South Florida uncovered dozens of unmarked graves on the school's campus. The state issued a formal apology to survivors and the families of victims in 2017.

The Senate version of the bill has one more committee stop before heading to the Senate floor for a full vote. If the legislation passes the House and the Senate, it will then head to Governor Ron DeSantis for final approval.