Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/tag/florida/page/5/)
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,
Randy Ratledge doesn’t get out much.
Since he was arrested in 2012, Ratledge, 61, has a fear of the police. He doesn’t like leaving his home, and definitely doesn’t like coming downtown, where he was locked up for 117 days.
In the first week for new Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, there’s been one prevailing sentiment: surprise.
While we have made enormous progress in many states in reducing detention numbers and closing prisons, too many youth are still spending the night behind bars. Surprisingly, New Zealand provides the United States with a helpful model for effective ways to right size our system by limiting arrests.
The civil rights marchers had gone about a mile and change into Wappinger Falls, a quaint village in Dutchess County, New York, when it was time for a bathroom break.