STATE MISSING ITS CHANCE TO REFORM CRIMINAL JUSTICE

The Issue: Florida Grapples With Its Penal Costs

Some state laws are more equal than others.

Take Senate Bill 2000, essential legislation that established the
Correctional Policy Advisory Council to examine Florida's penal
policies and devise recommendations to reduce the state's burgeoning
incarceration costs.

The Florida Legislature approved the measure and the governor signed
the bill into law - last year. Commission members were selected, but
the panel has yet to meet. Unfortunately, the commission never
received the funds to operate, and now the law establishing it is set
to expire on July 1. Talk about a missed opportunity.

In the past 40 years, Florida has seen its prison population spike
from 8,793 to around 102,440 today. Since 1988, the Florida Department
of Corrections' annual budget has spiraled accordingly, going from
$502 million to $2.4 billion. Crime isn't the problem; crime rates
have gone down. It's the type of inmates entering the system - a
majority of whom have committed non-violent offenses or are in for
possessing small amounts of illegal drugs.

At the moment, state leaders are grappling with a variety of ideas to
reduce the prison population, from diverting first-time, non-violent
offenders from prison facilities to privatization of penal services.
Unfortunately, personal politics seem to be getting in the way of
crafting public policy.

How else to explain Gov. Rick Scott's decision to order his staff not
to present the governor's proposed corrections budget before a state
Senate committee where prison appropriations usually originate? The
governor apparently doesn't like the panel's chair, state Sen. Mike
Fasano, R-New Port Richey, who has questioned Scott's plans to call
for sending more inmates to privately-run prisons when the state
facilities have 10,000 available beds.

There is an alternative - the advisory council approved last year.
The panel made up of representatives from the executive and
legislative branches, along with the judiciary, would take the
politics out of this process. More importantly, it would provide state
leaders with clear, concise recommendations based on an examination of
the facts, and not the ideologies of political fancy.

It's time for state leaders to move beyond lip service and political
theatrics and come up with a real strategy to make Florida's criminal
and juvenile justice programs more effective and affordable. All
lawmakers have to do is extend the advisory commission's July 1
expiration date so that its members, to borrow a line from Gov. Scott,
can get to work.

BOTTOM LINE: Politics can't impede effort to reduce costs in operating
Florida's prisons budget.