If you want to understand a system in crisis, watch the person trying to hold it together.

Last month, Florida Corrections Secretary Ricky Dixon stood before state lawmakers and asked for an additional $512 million just to keep the system functioning next year. That request did not include raises for some of the lowest-paid correctional officers in the country.

His voice, somewhere between anger and fear, cracked as he explained why: Ten thousand more inmates since he took the job, no increase in staff, nineteen-year-old rookies with two weeks of training supervising 150 inmates at a time, and an overtime bill spiraling toward $150 million a year.

There was a moment when Dixon paused and said, “If I continue to do this job.” It sounded like a man staring at the abyss.

But this moment

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