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Formula for Failure

By standdown

That's the title of an editorial in today's Sarasota Herald-Tribune about budget problems in Florida's indigent criminal justice system.  LINK Florida's recession-driven budget crisis provides little time for legislators to think about transforming criminal-sentencing laws and prison policies. But the state's dire straits provide a lot of incentives for overhauling statutes and rules that drive up the costs of the justice system -- and, in many cases, don't promote public safety.As Todd Ruger reported in Monday's Herald-Tribune, proposed reductions in the current fiscal year's budget may require state prosecutors and public defenders to place their staffs on temporary, unpaid leaves. Furloughs would be preferable to staff layoffs, but add them to cuts in the budgets for courts, probation officers and prisons, and Florida has a formula for failure...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on March 31, 2009 (boomark / email).