Pubdate: Fri, 14 May 2010 Source: Star-Banner, The (Ocala, FL) Copyright: 2010 The Star-Banner Contact: http://www.starbanner.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1533 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?159 (Drug Courts) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing) THE MANDATORY MINIMUM CRISIS While most of state government is shrinking, or at least not growing, Florida's prison system continues to grow by leaps and bounds. The tell-tale numbers are eye-catching. In 1995, the entire state prison budget was $1.6 billion. This year, it is $2.4 billion. In 1987, for every dollar spent on higher education in our state, 34 cents was spent on corrections. Today, that number is 66 cents. There are more than 101,000 inmates locked up in Florida prisons "" a 20 percent increase from just five years ago. And if the current rate of growth continues, state analysts predict the population will hit 115,000 within five years, requiring nine new prisons at a cost of $862 million. It is against this fiscal background "" and forecasts of a potential $5 billion state budget deficit next year "" that has a growing number of policy and fiscal watchdogs urging Florida lawmakers to rethink and rescind many of the state's mandatory minimum sentence laws, which are among the harshest in the nation. "oeIt is time for us to rethink 30-year-old policies that may have served the state well in their time," states a new report from the respected Collins Center for Public Policy, a Miami-based think tank established by the Legislature to advise it on public policy issues. "oeBut their time has passed. We know more now. Continuing to pour money into a bloated prison system in a time of fiscal austerity is not only unsustainable, it confounds common sense." While most of state government is shrinking, or at least not growing, Florida's prison system continues to grow by leaps and bounds. The tell-tale numbers are eye-catching. In 1995, the entire state prison budget was $1.6 billion. This year, it is $2.4 billion. In 1987, for every dollar spent on higher education in our state, 34 cents was spent on corrections. Today, that number is 66 cents. There are more than 101,000 inmates locked up in Florida prisons "" a 20 percent increase from just five years ago. And if the current rate of growth continues, state analysts predict the population will hit 115,000 within five years, requiring nine new prisons at a cost of $862 million. It is against this fiscal background "" and forecasts of a potential $5 billion state budget deficit next year "" that has a growing number of policy and fiscal watchdogs urging Florida lawmakers to rethink and rescind many of the state's mandatory minimum sentence laws, which are among the harshest in the nation. "oeIt is time for us to rethink 30-year-old policies that may have served the state well in their time," states a new report from the respected Collins Center for Public Policy, a Miami-based think tank established by the Legislature to advise it on public policy issues. "oeBut their time has passed. We know more now. Continuing to pour money into a bloated prison system in a time of fiscal austerity is not only unsustainable, it confounds common sense." Like the Collins Center, the conservative, business-backed Florida TaxWatch and the respected Pew Center on the States also have homed in on Florida's burgeoning prison population and budget, calling for reducing or eliminating mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent offenders and creating more sentencing alternatives like drug courts, among other reforms. The groups recognize more people are serving longer sentences than anytime in history. More than 41,000 of Florida's inmates have no chance of parole in large part because of these laws, and one in 10 is serving a life sentence. When the first mandatory minimum laws were passed in Florida in 1979, it was the height of Miami's cocaine wars. The intent was to make an unmistakable statement to hard-core criminals. But over the years, too many nonviolent offenders have gotten snared by the inflexibility of mandatory sentencing laws, especially low-level drug offenders, straining not only the public treasury, but the bounds of humanitarian justice. The laws are so hard and fast that they have weakened the authority and discretion of judges, supplanting it to prosecutors, who decide whether an accused criminal will be charged with a mandatory minimum offense or not. Study after study in state after state, meanwhile, has shown mandatory minimum sentences do not to deter crime. Nor do parole and alternative sentencing programs lead to increases in crime. The argument for reform of Florida's mandatory minimum sentencing laws is substantive. Too many Floridians are serving unnecessarily harsh sentences, often with no hope of freedom, and the cost has simply become unjustifiable. It is time to rethink these archaic laws, and with the fiscal forecast Florida faces, no time is better than now. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake