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EDITORIAL: Better data on criminal justice

News-Journal - 3/20/2018

March 20--In its recently concluded annual session, the Florida Legislature failed to pass the sweeping criminal justice reforms the state needs, despite the fact a comprehensive package received strong bipartisan support. Alas, that effort was derailed by a singularly heinous crime -- the Parkland massacre that forced lawmakers to switch priorities late in the session to gun control and school safety.

However, legislators still managed to secure a narrower but valuable secondary prize that, if signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott, will put the state at the nation's forefront.

A joint measure that passed the House and the Senate with a total of one dissenting vote makes Florida the first state to require counties to collect extensive criminal justice data and make it available in a publicly accessible database. That granular information -- everything from the ethnicities of defendants to the exact terms of their plea deals, the number of people being held in a jail pre-trial, and a court's annual misdemeanor caseload -- represents about 25 percent more data than counties currently provide. It can be used to track how cases are handled, and determine what works well in the criminal justice system, and what doesn't.

Rep. Chris Sprowls, R-Palm Harbor, is a former prosecutor (and currently in line to become House speaker in 2021) who was a driving force behind the legislation. He told Wired.com that he often struggled to find even the most basic data, such as a county's recidivism rate. Many of the existing databases across the state are incompatible; much of the data is stored in different areas, some of it in filing cabinets. It can be like looking for needles in haystacks -- but first you must find the right haystack while traveling from county to county.

It's a problem that is not unique to Florida, but Tallahassee can take the lead in fixing it.

The data bill could go a long way toward improving faults in the Sunshine State's criminal justice system such as those uncovered by "Bias on the Bench." That 2016 investigative series by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune (which like The News-Journal is owned by GateHouse Media) found that black offenders face significantly longer sentences than white defendants for the same crimes, even when other factors -- such as criminal record, location and age -- are accounted for.

The Herald-Tribune had to construct that statistical picture painstakingly, by reviewing five separate databases that collectively contain tens of millions of records, as well as boxes and boxes of court documents. Other nonprofit groups pursuing criminal justice reform similarly complained of the process being not only time-consuming, but also incomplete. Measures for Justice, which consulted with the Legislature on the data bill, told Wired it found information on only 18 of the 32 measurements it was searching for in Florida.

With more information available, hopefully Florida's justice system can be made fairer and more accountable. It also should help save taxpayers money.

In the late 1990s, the state implemented many "tough on crime" measures that increased its prison population by 29 percent over the next two decades, making it the third largest prison population in the nation. Florida inmates also serve longer sentences than the national average. Thus, spending on the prison system subsequently shot up 60 percent, from $1.5 billion annually to $2.4 billion. The national trend, led by states such as Texas and Georgia, is to find alternatives to prison for many non-violent crimes.

Better data should make for better policy. We urge Gov. Scott to sign the bill into law, and make Florida a national leader in criminal justice reform.

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(c)2018 The News-Journal, Daytona Beach, Fla.

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