Dr. Laura E. Bedard began her work in corrections as a jail administrator in 1984. During her tenure as administrative faculty for the College of Criminology at Florida State University, she ran a study-abroad program in the Czech Republic lecturing on crime topics in an emerging democracy. In 2005, she became the first female Deputy Secretary of the Florida Department of Corrections. There she was responsible for 27,000 state employees and over 200,000 offenders in the third largest correctional system in the country. Dr. Bedard has published and lectured on a number of corrections-related topics including women in prison, mental health issues and correctional leadership. Dr. Bedard is currently serving as the Chief of Corrections for the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office in Sanford, Florida.
Before Dr. Bedard began working in the field of corrections, she witnessed an execution fulfilling the role of a Florida citizen witness. During her time as Deputy Secretary, she witnessed three more executions. On December 22, 2022 she sat down with me in Sanford, Florida at the Seminole County Sheriff's Office to talk about her experiences serving as a witness at the four Florida executions that she attended.
Check out her recently-released book What Do I Wear to the Execution? at the link below:
https://www.amazon.com/What-Do-I-Wear-Execution-ebook/dp/B09T91Z7GN?ref_=ast_sto_dp
The video link found above provides a synopsis of this fictional novel authored by Dr. Bedard.