State Rep. Maria Sachs, D-Delray Beach, is spearheading a drive to collect computers for a Department of Corrections Pilot Literacy Program.

It won’t cost taxpayers a dime, she said, and will actually help individuals and firms by giving them a tax deduction for donating the equipment.

She already has 50 of them, from the city of Delray Beach, from the Greater Delray Beach Chamber of Commerce and from some individuals and law firms.  She is also challenging the Greater Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce to come up with some terminals.

“I was very critical of the new secretary of corrections, James McDonough, when he planned to request more money for more prisons,” Sachs told the Boca Raton News.  

She said the prison system should push rehabilitation to stem the 44 percent recidivism rate among inmates.  

When she spoke with McDonough, she told him: “What I need is computers.  He said it’s expensive.”  So she embarked on an effort to get them through the private sector. She also said the corrections chief assigned three full time people to the task of acquiring computers.




Gene Hatcher, chief information officer for the DOC, has sent out a memo saying the department “is seeking donations of computer equipment to be used in improving the reading grade level of inmates.  We have proven that as reading grade levels are improved, so is the probability of employment.”

“The computer donation program is clearly a win-win strategy in that the state of Florida reduces expenses, the inmates raise their reading levels, the donating entity receives a tax benefit and crime is reduced across the state.”

Sachs said free software has been donated for the program.

“The DOC has a van that will come and pick up the computers,” she said.  It’s part of a process that Hatcher said includes picking up, cleaning, repairing and securing the donated computers.

Once the computers are deemed usable, he said, they are installed in a quarantined area of a correctional institution’s education facility. Inmates are searched going in and coming out, he said, and are supervised while they are using the computers.

Sachs said any person or firm interested in donating computers can call her district office in Delray Beach, 561-266-6645.