Editor's note: This story was originally published by The Florida Trib.
After 30 years at the Florida Department of Corrections, Ricky Dixon, secretary of the nation’s third-largest state prison system, is calling it quits. In a two-page letter to Gov. Ron DeSantis, Dixon termed his exit a retirement, effective at the end of June.
“Under your leadership, and because of the professionalism, dedication, and resilience of our staff, we have reestablished Florida as a national leader in corrections,” Dixon wrote. “Thank you again, sir, and it has been an honor to serve!”
The prison system Dixon took over in November 2021 had been soiled by years of scandal, including a slew of suspicious inmate deaths, systemic abuse by guards at multiple compounds and the routine rape and brutalization of women inmates by staff at Lowell Correctional, which led to a searing 34-page report by the U.S. Justice Department.
Although Dixon occupied high-level management positions during all of that, Ron McAndrew, a former Florida prison warden turned corrections consultant, called Dixon a “miracle worker” who made improvements.
“He has recognized issues from top to bottom,” said McAndrew. “Because he came from the bottom.”
Dixon started literally at the bottom. He was hired in 1996 as a corrections officer at Lancaster Correctional, then rose through the ranks, spending years in upper management as a parade of his predecessors fell by the wayside. His prior posts included corrections colonel at Florida State Prison, where the state carries out executions, assistant warden, warden at three compounds, deputy assistant secretary of institutions and deputy secretary of the department.
Dixon’s tenure at the top had its own stumbles as Gov. DeSantis accelerated the pace of executions as part of his get-tough-on-crime agenda.
Under his leadership, Florida executed 32 people — about 60% of them in 2025, which saw a record-breaking 19 executions in a single year. That was more than all those put to death during that time period in Texas, Alabama, and South Carolina, among the leaders in executions.
A February 2026 investigation by Mother Jones and The Florida Trib documented issues in nearly half of those Florida executions.
There were flaws in at least nine from February to September 2025, including signs of underdosings and the use of expired drugs or drug substitutions. Each of these issues violated the execution protocol signed by Dixon himself.
The executions have kept coming. Florida has already executed six more people in the first five months of 2026 despite constant legal appeals challenging department protocols and claims of violations of the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment barring cruel and unusual punishment.
Dixon has yet to publicly acknowledge or comment on these allegations.
In the letter to DeSantis, Dixon credited the governor with 10 corrections-related achievements, from pay raises for prison and probation officers to “modernization” of the inmate management system to emphasizing rehabilitation while “keeping the victims of crimes at the forefront.” He said the state under DeSantis also captured the “rich history of Florida’s correctional system” by constructing a “Corrections Museum” and a “Hall of Fame.”
In January 2025, as Florida prisons were about to begin their most lethal year since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, Dixon was sworn in as the President of the American Correctional Association (ACA), the largest organization of correctional professionals aiming to improve the justice system.
He put out a statement through the ACA, reiterating his retirement.
“I want to assure each of you that my retirement from state service in no way diminishes my commitment to the mission, vision, and work of the American Correctional Association,” he wrote. “I will continue to actively lead, engage, and advocate on behalf of our profession while supporting the advancement of correctional experience, professional development, safety, accountability, and innovation throughout our field.”
McAndrew and Dixon crossed paths several times over the years, but never sat down to speak, according to McAndrew, until two years ago when he was invited to the secretary’s Tallahassee office to chat. They spoke about several things that only those who have worked day and night in the correctional world would know, he said: from prison budgets to the need for rehabilitation of those who have served time behind bars.
For McAndrew, who has historically been vocally opposed to the state’s frequent executions, citing the effect they have on staff responsible for carrying them out, Dixon is just a cog in a death machine run by Governor DeSantis.
But in the eyes of Grace Hanna, the executive director of Floridians Against Death Penalty, Dixon “leaves behind a legacy of protocol deviations.”
“While the governor is responsible for scheduling executions, Secretary Dixon was charged with leading the team carrying them out,” Hanna said. “We hope that this change in administration may indicate a new era in the transparency and accountability initiative in the Florida DOC.”
After repeated lawsuits seeking to halt the state’s execution spree to review its protocol, Dixon was seen in February 2026 inside an execution chamber, personally overseeing the death of Ronald Heath, a witness told The Florida Trib.
Heath’s execution went off without complications, according to a witness and other news organizations.
Oishika Neogi is a special correspondent for The Florida Trib working on a grant-funded project on accidental in-custody deaths. oishika.neogi@floridatrib.org. The Tributary is a nonprofit newsroom producing high-impact government accountability and investigative journalism in the public interest. Based in Jacksonville, the Florida Trib's mission is to shine a light on systemic problems and solutions, hold those in power accountable, and focus on under covered topics through collaboration with other news organizations and the community.
