Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/tag/florida-criminal-justice-reporting-project/page/3/)
On June 4, after 44 years in office, Broward County’s state attorney, Michael Satz, announced he’ll be stepping down. His departure could herald a sea change for the county’s criminal justice system, which has been marred by high-profile crimes and allegations of racially biased policing.
My daughter Taylor has been raised in adult jails and prisons since she was 15. She is now 19 and it will be another six years before she can come home. At that point, as she navigates being an adult in a world she’s never known, she’ll carry the burden of probation until she’s 35.
One of the basic questions we must ask ourselves when considering criminal justice reform is: Do we really believe that people are redeemable? Our response drives our personal philosophies on how justice systems should look. As long as there is debate about humans’ ability to reform, we will not have agreement as a society about what constitutes justice.
Two grey-haired men listened silently in Courtroom 505 of the Duval County Courthouse on March 28 as Judge Angela M. Cox uttered the words that they’d waited the better part of 50 years to hear: “The indictments against you have been dismissed and you are free to go.”
Just two months into her term, in March 2017, the Orlando area state attorney, Aramis Ayala, made an unprecedented announcement. Standing in front of the Orange County Courthouse, a gaggle of TV microphones clipped around her podium, she stated firmly, “I will not be seeking the death penalty in cases in my office.”
Michael Mills had run-ins with the law in his younger, wilder days. Now he is 43, an automotive repairman and father of four who lives in Baldwin, Fla., a quasi-independent municipality in Jacksonville. He thought that was all far behind him until he was arrested in September 2018 on felony charges of impersonating a police officer.
A new wind blew over Florida on Nov. 6, 2018, bringing with it a renewed air of bipartisan support for criminal justice reform. The overwhelming voter approval of...
The state of Florida sends more juveniles through the adult court system than does any other state in the country.
In 2018 Jacksonville was the per capita murder capital of Florida. But that barely made news, since Jacksonville has been the murder capital among large cities in Florida since 2001.
Thanks to decades of tough-on-crime policies, Florida now has the third-largest prison population in the United States — nearly 100,000 people,