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Criminal justice reform gets bipartisan support from senators at forum
In a show of bipartisan solidarity, State Senators Jeff Brandes (R) and Daryl Rouson (D) held a community forum on criminal justice reform at St. Petersburg College Thursday evening.
Moderated by former Judge Dee Anna Farnell, the forum’s aim was to raise awareness on how the criminal justice system has a myriad of problems that need to be addressed – chief among them being the focus on punishment rather than rehabilitation. All three guests explained how this longstanding practice is detrimental not just for the person going through the system but also for taxpayers and the community at large.
Judge Farnell set the tone for the forum by opening with a previous statement from Brandes, “Our Department of Corrections should be renamed the Department of Warehousing, because we don’t correct, we just warehouse people.”
Brandes said that he first became passionate on the issue after unexpectedly being selected to sit on a criminal justice committee, even though he has no real criminal justice background. He recalled one of his first meetings of this small, five-person committee that took place in a basement where the Secretary of Criminal Justice was giving a report on lawsuits that had occurred in the prison system over the last year.
There they told a story of a man that was taken out of his cell by corrections officer, placed in a shower with the hot water turned all the way up, and left there for hours. Despite his pleads for help and his skin falling off no one came to his aid, and he passed away. Brandes said that he looked around the room in disbelief and saw someone texting on their phone and another reading from their laptop.
“I had this visceral reaction that I was on plane at 30,000 feet with an engine out, upside down, and no one was at the controls,” said Brandes.
Senator Jeff Brandes (screen grab).
Brandes compared working on the criminal justice system to being a firefighter and going to a house that is on fire, but every room is engulfed. The first step is just to figure out where to start.
“So, the place that I figured out where to start is, get on the radio and call for help,” said Brandes. “Because you can’t do it all yourself.”
Rouson credited Brandes for impressing upon him the urgency to pop in and visit prisons, and explained that even minor changes are difficulty to enact amid political posturing. Rouson gave Senator Jason Pizzle’s bill to change the name of the Criminal Punishment Code to the “Public Safety Code” as an example.
“Just that minor change might have started the avalanche of real change in terms of not warehousing people,” said Rouson. “The bill made it through two Senate committees but died in its third committee, and that shows the difficulty of trying to get even simple things done in Tallahassee.”
Farnell also recommended that elected officials visit prisons throughout Florida to get a better feel for how they operate. She said that so many people do not take advantage of that and “maybe that don’t want to see what we’re doing or not doing in the great state of Florida.”
“My philosophy was that if I’m gong to send someone to prison I wanted to see where they went,” said Farnell.
Rouson said they pushed for real police reform such as de-escalation techniques and banning chokeholds, but with the current hyper-partisan nature of the legislature the only bipartisan bill they could get passed was on new standards and opportunities for training. He added that while that was a small win, the bill did not “have any teeth” for failures to comply, and that was a real weakness.
Brandes broke down the criminal justice system into three areas. The first is diversion and sentencing reform, and he said the state is having incredible success with juvenile citations. While this is voluntary it is heavily utilized in Florida, and Brandes would like to see this extend to adults as well.
“They don’t get an arrest record, they go into a diversion program, they have a civil citations and they’re followed up with,” said Brandes. “And lo and behold, most of them never get back in trouble.”
The second area is the prison system itself. Brandes said most of the problems here are related to financial issues and underpaid officers. He said that 40% of new officers will be gone in a year, and 60% will have found new professions in just two years. This leads to a revolving door of trainees that are ill equipped to properly handle inmates, as well as officers that are prime targets for bribes.
The last area of concern was re-entry.
“To me, this is one where if Florida committed itself it could do radically more,” said Brandes. “Because right now when you leave the prison system you get $50 and a bus pass.”
Brandes said that with today’s technology and the desire of faith-based organizations to follow up with and mentor these people, that this is unacceptable. With the two main factors of becoming a productive member of society being going home to a stable family and job, Brandes said that is what the system should be focusing on. While the state cannot control the family dynamic, it can assign a mentor and provide workforce training.
“A third of people that are incarcerated in the Florida system can’t even read,” said Brandes. “They’re functionally illiterate. We’re not even meeting the minimum standards to get the literate, while some are with us for decades.”
Farnell also gave statistics for the public’s desire for sentencing reform. She said that 87% of voters support replacing minimum mandatory sentencing, 92% think that prison time for low risk, nonviolent offenders should be dramatically decreased, and that 94% believe that prisons should offer more rehabilitation and training services.
“We need to give judges more discretion,” said Rouson. “We need to create more diversion programs that give people treatment and another chance, rather than incarceration where they get no chance at rehabilitation. This was a tough year for criminal justice reform, and it should have been an easy one.”
Justin Time
October 24, 2022at5:28 am
To preface, this is an excellent article, I’m thrilled that at least baby steps are being taken to reform the DOJ and the countless abuses at jails and prisons by both inmates as well as staff. Furthermore, I’m beyond thrilled that all of this seems to have been led by the Honorable Judge Dee Anne Farnell.
What is disheartening and has always bothered me is that 1. We didn’t always have diversion programs, 2. Why haven’t non-violent offenders who were convicted prior to the creation and implementation of diversion programs given the opportunity once implemented to participate, and upon successful completion, have their charges dismissed? And above all 3. Why must a reformed individual carry around a criminal record for life?
Can we not create and implement a “second chance” program that upon completion and many (perhaps even for the remainder their lives, although beyond extreme) years of monitoring have all non-violent convictions entirely remove from their records? Why can’t I find a single record of what I’m saying having ever been proposed?
I’ve conducted the research and even a low level misdemeanor is the cause of a company’s decisions to not hire the applicant. If what we desire is true and lasting reform in the lives of people convicted of non-violent crimes, why is the systems setting them up for dead end, low paying jobs, further disappointment that would likely lead to further and almost certainly more severe criminal acts all while robbing them of all hope for a prosperous, judgement free future?
We need to do better! A second chance program to erase non-violent criminal records must be considered, expurgated and implemented as soon as possible! Granted, this solves nothing for the countless abuses by both jail and prison guards and inmates. However, it does provide hope for a better future for non-violent offenders and hope is everything! The lack of hope alone is detrimental. The struggles it brings to one’s life is insurmountable and frankly, inexcusable.
Before anyone discounts what I’m suggesting, perhaps consider the current scenario that is “the system” we all know is broken and far from perfect, regardless of the fact that it works but in a less than mediocre way. Ask yourselves what exactly is it providing (beyond tax dollars to state and federal run jails and prisons and enormous profits for the private prison system) for the non-violent offenders, the states and the federal government? What actual benefit does destroying one’s life and any and all hope of prosperity (hope in general if we’re being completely honest here) in one’s life do to benefit our country and its many cities, counties, municipalities, jurisdictions and states? How can we achieve actual reform amidst the countless, entirely unchecked abuses presently occurring in jails and prisons while also destroying lives, families and all hope for non-violent offenders? Again, we MUST do better!
Janice Taylor
July 20, 2021at7:56 pm
Thank you, Senators, for setting a positive example. Both sides can work together for the common good.
Fac Speaks
July 13, 2021at2:50 pm
What is never included in a discussion for reform in the state of Florida is the barbaric statutes that go with the sex offense registry in this state. While all research shows a relatively low re-offense rate (committing another sex offense), the Florida statutes refer to a high re-offense rate with absolutely no research to back up such a statement.
What research does show:
The U. S. Department of Justice May of 2019 report found that released inmates in 30 states, whose most serious offense was rape or sexual assault, had a re-offense rate (committing another sex crime) of 7.7% over the 9-year period from 2005 to 2014. That means that 92.3% did NOT re-offend. This study only considered the most violent of sex crimes. When all sexual offenses are included, the rate is lower.
Karl Hanson, one of the leading researchers in the field of risk assessment and treatment for people who have committed a sex offense, compiled data from many different research studies on re-offense rates for people on the sex offense registry and found the following to be true: The lifetime re-offense rate is anywhere from 10% to 30%, depending on which study you use, with the larger studies having the lower rates. These studies were for people who were caught and have served time in prison. (Dr. Hanson’s research results were recently shared at the Connecticut’s One Standard of Justice January 2021 Webinar: “Sex Offender Recidivism Risk Not What You Think”.)
People on the registry who re-offend are one matter, but the tens of thousands of registrants in the state of Florida who, after being caught and serving time in prison, are not re-offending deserve a second chance. Society is so much better off if any released inmate is able to reintegrate back into society as a law-abiding citizen with a place to live, a job, and family or community support/mentorship.
The residency restrictions are becoming prohibitive with many being up to 2500 feet of schools, daycares, parks/playgrounds, bus stops, and other places that children can congregate. With the community notification laws and online sites to obtain registrants’ personal information, many registrants and their family members are the targets of vigilantes. Their driver’s licenses are branded with either a “sex offender” statute number or a labeling of “sexual predator”, with these licenses having to be shown in numerous places. If a family member visits in their home for 5 days or more, their family member’s vehicle has to be registered with the sheriff’s office. As a result the of the 2021 Florida legislative session, now if a couple decides to divorce, if one of the parents is on the registry, they will automatically lose shared custody of the child no matter how good the registrant is as a parent. (Only a judge can intercede to give the parent joint custody, which is most unlikely). And the list goes on and on as to what registrants, who are law-abiding citizens in Florida, are living through – a draconian police state which is for LIFE in the state of Florida.
Released murderers, along with all other criminal offenders, do not have to live by the medieval statutes that registrants in Florida do.
Florida has plenty of room for improvement when it comes to our criminal justice system. Please do not forget about those on the sex offense registry who are now law-abiding citizens.