Florida inmate who received reparations for abuse at reform school faces execution

"Less than three months ago, Victor Jones was among more than 900 men who received apologies from Florida officials and checks for $21,000 as reparations for the horrific abuse they endured as children at state-run reform schools. On Sept. 30, Jones is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection for the 1990 murders of a couple in Miami-Dade County. He would be the third former student at the notorious reform schools to be executed in little more than a year."

"Beatings, rapes, solitary confinement and other types of physical and mental torture by staff at the school and at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna were so egregious that Florida lawmakers last year steered $20 million to a compensation program for survivors of the institutions. Men who attended the schools between 1940 and 1975 and "were subjected to mental, physical or sexual abuse perpetrated by school personnel" - including Jones - were eligible for the compensation."

Victor Jones, 64, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Sept. 30 for the 1990 murders of a Miami-Dade couple. Jones was among more than 900 men who received apologies and $21,253.98 checks as reparations for severe abuse endured as children at state-run reform schools, including Okeechobee and the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys. Beatings, rapes, solitary confinement and other physical and mental torture by staff prompted Florida lawmakers to allocate $20 million for a compensation program for survivors who attended between 1940 and 1975. Jones' attorneys assert that his life-altering trauma from multiple stints at the school should spare him execution, arguing that executing a recognized victim would contradict the state's recognition of those horrors.

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