Inmate dignity, citizen safety key in Florida criminal-justice reform
Two of Florida’s favorite pastimes — sports and politics — have long been dominated by a “go with your gut” attitude. Whether evaluating pitching talent or assessing a piece of legislation, an instinctdriven approach has carried the day. That is increasingly changing in sports. The Oakland Athletics pioneered the “Moneyball” approach to baseball now widely embraced by many successful teams that looks carefully at data trends to make decisions about players. A new group of scholars, the Academy for Justice, wants to bring about a similar change in criminal-justice policymaking.
This consortium, headed by Arizona State University Law Professor Erik Luna, has produced a four-volume book of short but serious articles about problems in American criminal justice. The report, “Reforming Criminal Justice,” can be accessed online at academyforjustice.org, and each article covers a specific criminaljustice topic authored by a university professor with broad recognition as an expert in the field.
Each article also concludes with substantive recommendations for a path forward. Contributors must root their recommendations in data and evidence, not merely an instinctive sense of what “feels” like it might work. Luna understands that Floridians are eager to see data-driven solutions to difficult policy problems.
Consider the example of Florida’s neighbor to the north — Georgia. The state has become a darling in criminal justice policy circles for implementing evidence-based approaches that focus limited public resources on communitysupervision alternatives to incarceration, such as drug courts and electronic monitoring. In doing so, Georgia has managed to trim costly prison populations while the state crime rate has steadily declined.
When Georgia passed this reform legislation in 2011, its legislators asked the academics and think-tank experts who testified before them to explain what had been demonstrated to work, not merely to theorize.
Those experts cited Texas’ 2007 budget, which directed approximately $300 million to community corrections instead of simply rubber-stamping a request for $2 billion for prison expansion. By 2011, when Georgia was seeking examples of criminal-justice reform success, Texas had quite an impressive record. Prison populations had dropped so significantly that then-Gov. Rick Perry was able to authorize the closure of three state prisons. Moreover, crime rates in Texas dropped to levels not seen since the late 1960s. As of 2018, Texas has closed five more prisons and crime rates in the state continue to decline.
Florida policymakers want to hear these numbers. They want to hear about the evidence suggesting that because Texas law did not contain too many rigid mandatoryminimum sentences, policymakers had the flexibility to change the state’s punishment system quickly — and make it more effective.
They want to hear about how Kentucky is successfully changing its bail system so limited resources are prioritized for jailing the most dangerous suspects who have the highest likelihood of endangering public safety while they await trial.
They want to hear about how South Dakota has pioneered an impressive system for dealing with DUI crimes that has coincided not only with fewer deaths from drunken driving, but also fewer instances of domestic violence and other ills that stem from alcohol abuse.
A vigorous conversation about these policies and the ways in which they might be adapted by other states is needed in Florida, where according to a new report from Florida’s own Project on Accountable Justice the incarceration rate is 20 percent above the national average.
The Academy for Justice appreciates Florida needs — and Florida wants — to hear evidence-based ideas for combating crime that will be effective but will not break the bank.
To say that an idea is evidencebased is not the end of the inquiry. If policymakers have different goals, they may interpret data in different ways as they balance competing policy priorities. In criminal justice, however, the immediate goals are clear and nearly universally shared. Floridians want a criminal-justice system that makes them safer, is less expensive, and recognizes the inherent dignity of all people.
When the goals are clear, all that remains is a dedicated effort to finding and applying solutions that have been tested and shown to work.
That’s the project to which the Academy for Justice is committed. Hopefully, its new report will find a place on the desk of all Florida policymakers in the 2018 session — and in many more sessions to come.