“Hard on crime is hard on taxpayers.”
In a 2014 interview with 9 Investigates, Florida Tax Watch Executive Vice President Robert Weissert delivered that terse summarization of Florida’s prison problems. Now, a half-decade later, the state is preparing to meet the problem head-on.
Florida’s crime rate has experienced a steady decline since 1990, yet the prison population continued to grow until 2010, and only now is at the same level it was in 2005. Violent crimes in the state peaked in 1990, and have subsequently fallen since then; today less than 14% of all crimes committed in the state are violent crimes.
Now a new report to the state from the Florida Legislature's Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability (OPPAGA) is highlighting places where the state could save money through prison diversion.
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“Diverting offenders from prison can result in annual savings to the state. The daily cost to incarcerate one prisoner in Fiscal Year 2016-17 was $55.80 per day, compared to only $5.52 for community supervision. If 1,500 offenders sentenced to prison were sentenced to community supervision instead, Florida could realize approximately $27.5 million in savings annually,” wrote OPPAGA in its January 2019 report.
The report highlighted the inconsistent use of prison diversion for nonviolent offenders across the state, finding smaller rural counties tended to send more people to prison and divert less, increasing the cost to the state.
“If the largest counties in Florida locked people up at the same rate as the smaller counties, our incarceration rate would double,” said UCF Political Science professor Dr. Aubrey Jewett. “Perhaps there is more of a judicial culture in some areas where judges are more likely to crack down.”
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Florida uses a scoresheet to help determine prison sentences. Statewide about 59% of offenders who scored 44 or higher received a state prison sentence. In the 9th Judicial Circuit, which includes Orange and Osceola Counties, that number was 55%. Compare that to the 10th Judicial Circuit, which includes Hardee, Highlands and Polk counties, where the number came in at 79%.
“What that suggests in short is there is room in Florida to divert some low level offenders away from prison,” says Jewett.
The report to the state also found another benefit beyond cost savings; a reduction in recidivism.
"Once an offender is released from prison, felony recidivism rates and violent felony recidivism rates are significantly higher for offenders relative to similar offenders sentenced to community supervision," wrote OPPAGA in its report.
Florida lawmakers are expected to discuss criminal justice reform when they meet this spring. As part of that planning, OPPAGA lists four recommendations: Increase the number of lower-level prison bound offenders served by problem-solving courts, create a safety valve or modify mandatory minimum terms for drug offenses, reduce some third-degree felonies to misdemeanors and revise the Criminal Punishment Code.
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