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Examining Florida's tough sentencing laws

By Douglas A. Berman

Today's Daytona Beach News-Journal has this pair of interesting pieces exploring Florida's tough sentencing laws: Rigid penalties, high costs, but are we safer? Sharp contrast over lock 'em up efficacy Here is an excerpt from the first of these pieces:By the end of the year, Florida's prison population could top 100,000. The cost of keeping those prisoners behind bars runs close to $20,000 per inmate, per year, and the total correctional budget is more than $2.5 billion. Despite a prison-building spree in the 1990s, Florida's state correctional institutions are near capacity, and the state will need an estimated two new prisons a year to keep up. When state coffers are full, prison budgets get little scrutiny. But lawmakers are staring down a $2 billion hole in next year's budget...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on April 06, 2008 (boomark / email).