For almost 30 years, the ninth floor of the Miami-Dade Pre-Trial Detention Center served as the largest psychiatric ward in the state — despite only having one psychiatrist on staff.
Now-retired county Judge Steven Leifman called the conditions on the ninth floor a “hell hole”: prisoners slept on the floor and were beaten, and, at times, when there was no running water, inmates drank from toilets.
“I couldn’t believe they would treat people that way,” Leifman told WLRN…