Another Viewpoint: Long overdue ‘smart’ justice within reach

Florida is home to the nation’s third-largest prison system. It is also one the worst — overcrowded and aging facilities, underfunded operations, and an inexperienced and poorly paid staff that has led to a dangerous environment for both inmates and correctional officers.

After a decade of “tough-on crime policies,” rigid mandatory minimum jail sentences and misplaced efforts to privatize prison healthcare services, our state now faces a broken criminal justice system that is mired in rising costs from cramped prisons and drowning in adverse litigation.

As Florida Department of Corrections Secretary Mark Inch puts it: “The status quo is not sustainable.”

No, it is not. But fortunately, the state has a chance to fix years of self-inflicted damage from “lock ’em up” laws, and pass legislation that would reduce state prison populations, save taxpayers money and maybe, show some compassion. Reforms are long overdue: a tweak that reduces the penalty for possessing small amounts of drugs; a change to expand “gain time” and reduce lengthy prison terms; options to inflexible sentencing; and a fix in procedures to provide more inmates with sentencing reviews. These types of “smart justice” policies are not only teed up, but on the move.

For example, SB 346, a bill sponsored by state Sen. Rob Bradley, R.- Orange Park, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, authorizes the court to ignore using mandatory minimum sentences in certain drug trafficking offenses and limits the penalty for anyone caught possessing less than two grams of a controlled substance, other than fentanyl and related derivatives, to no more than a year. (The bill was scheduled to be heard on the floor of the Senate on Wednesday, and stands a strong chance of approval.)

Indeed, much of the action thus far this session has been in the Senate, where no less than 20 bills have been introduced. One bill, filed by state Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, increases gain time, used to shorten an inmate’s sentence for good behavior, by 15 to 35 percent. The change would save Florida roughly $860 million over five years. And if Bradley’s bill (SB 346) makes it through the Legislature and gains the governor’s signature, it could result in a reduction of up to 4,800 prison beds and save the state another $50 million.

Since the first week of the session, the Senate has made criminal justice reform a priority. Not so in the House, where GOP leadership seemed more concerned about playing to its conservative base. But last Thursday, House Speaker Jose Oliva said the House is “very open” to SB 346 if it passes the Senate. A similar House bill sponsored by a bipartisan group of 27 lawmakers has not been heard by any committees.

After reportedly talking with senators, Attorney General Ashley Moody and Gov. Ron DeSantis' office, Bradley, a former prosecutor, last week made major changes to his bill — such as shrinking the number of defendants who are eligible to get shorter sentences.

The changes were enough to move Oliva, who said talks on the issue would likely start this week.

We can’t afford delays any longer. Our prison system clearly needs additional resources. To his credit, DeSantis, in his proposed budget, added $114 million to the corrections department’s budget primarily to alleviate worker shortages and curb the high turnover rates in the corrections system.

It’s a start. Years of budget cuts have hollowed out the ranks of experienced correctional officers and facilities are in various states of disrepair.

Worse, a 2019 audit, requested during last year’s legislative session by the Senate, found that the decade-long push to privatize prisons and prison healthcare has led to a number of successful lawsuits against the department leaving Florida taxpayers holding the bag.

None of the prison issues are new. Neither is the clarion call for sentencing reform.

Legislative leaders must put away the “tough-on-crime” rhetoric long enough to finally take heed of the warnings that have come from the state’s corrections department secretaries for years.

And with only a few weeks left in the current session, they should move quickly to increase the corrections department’s budget, approve smart criminal justice legislation and save taxpayers money.

This editorial was published by the Palm Beach Post.