Millions spent to jail small-time offenders

Counties looking at citations as way to keep fewer people behind bars

Taxpayers in South Florida are spending millions of dollars every year to jail people accused of crimes as petty as panhandling and public drinking.

A homeless man arrested for sleeping on Fort Lauderdale’s public beach spent 42 days in the Broward County Jail — at a cost of about $5,880 to the county — because he could not afford a $25 bond, court records show. He ended up being charged a $50 court fine.

Another man spent 65 days in jail after being arrested once for panhandling in Fort Lauderdale and another time for drinking a beer on a city bench. Both charges carried $25 bonds, but it cost the

county some $9,100 to house him.

Their stories are not unusual. Broward’s jails held 3,696 inmates on Thursday, including 40 on bonds of $500 or less.

Consider that each person in the jail costs $50,000 or more over the course of a year — roughly $135 to $140 a day in Broward and Palm Beach counties, county officials say.

“We just can’t continue in this county to take everybody to the county jail,” Broward Chief Judge Jack Tuter said.

To cut costs, South Florida counties now are looking for ways to avoid locking up people for nonviolent misdemeanor crimes.

Since 2015, Broward, Palm Beach and MiamiDade counties have passed laws that give police officers the discretion to issue citations to people caught with less than 20 grams of marijuana. The citations carry some combination of fine, community service and/or treatment, but no criminal charge.

Broward commissioners are considering extending the practice to offenses such as petty theft, possession of drug paraphernalia, trespassing, possession of alcohol by a person under 21, disorderly conduct and littering. A person would not be eligible if he or she were charged with a misdemeanor connected to a felony, domestic violence, another violent crime or driving under the influence.

In Palm Beach County, the Criminal Justice Commission has received a $2 million MacArthur grant to find ways to reduce the county’s jail population. Ideas include:

Dropping warrants for low-level offenses that are more than 10 years old.

Directing homeless people charged with minor offenses to housing and social services instead.

Sending out reminders of court dates to defendants. (About 14 percent of the people jailed in 2016 were there because they missed a court date.)

Doing a better job identifying low-risk individuals who can be released while awaiting trial.

Miami-Dade is ahead of its neighbors, implementing a program in 2010 that lets people avoid jail on minor crimes. In 2016, the county issued 6,796 adult citations. Most — 3,623 — were for marijuana possession, followed by 1,182 for possession of drug paraphernalia, 482 for violating park regulations and 311 for underage alcohol possession.

When Palm Beach County commissioners approved marijuana citations in 2015, figures showed it cost $322,245 for the county to jail people between 2009 and 2015 for low-level marijuana possession. That amount increased to $1.1 million when a marijuana arrest was combined with other misdemeanor infractions.

All three counties already have juvenile citation programs that help keep kids out of court on nonviolent misdemeanor. Those programs are models for the adult program Broward wants to implement.

Kristina Henson, executive director of Palm Beach’s Criminal Justice Commission, said her county thinks it will have more impact to make the current system run better than to add a new adult citation program.

“We’re not done. This has been the product of two years’ worth of data and work,” Henson said. “We’re just starting to look at the full picture of the types of people who are coming into our system.”

A 2016 study by James Austin, president of the JFA Institute, which evaluates criminal justice practices, found that Broward’s jail housed many homeless people on bonds of $100 or less, despite the non-serious nature of their charges. On one day in August 2016, the jail held 818 people in minimum security awaiting trial, he said.

“This large number begins to suggest that there is a significant number of pretrial defendants who could be safely released to the community under the supervision of the [Sheriff’s Office] or could be assigned to alternative housing,” Austin concluded.

Broward Commissioner Dale Holness said his goal is “to ensure that we don’t continue to put low-income people in jail and prison as much as we do.” The citation program would help with that, while ensuring that justice is served, he said.

“This would hold them accountable for their actions,” Holness said. “They’re not getting off scot free.They’ll pay a price.”

Broward officials hope to do more than just reduce the jail population. They also want to prevent blemishes on otherwise clean records that could make it more difficult for people to get jobs.

Broward Public Defender Howard Finkelstein said using citations will allow police the “opportunity to stop the behavior, to cite the behavior, to fine or remedy the behavior without branding that young person for the rest of their life.”