Like this western prison, the Duval County Pre-Trial Detention Facility has more inmates than beds. Now 45 percent over capacity, the local jail is forced to make inmates sleep on mats on the floor.
THE PUNISHER
The jail is overflowing, taxpayers are footing the bill, and a new © 2012 FolioWeekly report says State Attorney Angela Corey is to blame
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rime is down in Northeast Florida. So is the number of arrests. But the Duval County Jail is bursting at the seams, its population higher than at any point in its history — about 45 percent above capacity. According to a new report by two University of North Florida criminologists, the reason for the disparity boils down to one thing: “prosecutorial style.” “While State Attorney Angela Corey lives up to every prosecutor’s mantra to be ‘tough on crime,’ ” the report asks, “is there a point where this becomes counter-productive?” In the study, “No Peace Dividend for Duval?” Dr. Michael Hallett, chairman of UNF’s Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice, and Dr. Dan Pontzer, an assistant professor in that department, examine what they call Jacksonville’s “punitive civic infrastructure.” The study points out that Jacksonville is alone among large Florida cities in seeing a surging jail population at a time of declining crime rates, and it raises serious questions about whether this mass incarceration actually “endangers and compromises” city safety efforts. Perhaps most surprisingly, the report expresses concerns about the apparent rise of “a political machine” in local criminal justice circles, in which formerly adversarial offices like that of the state attorney and public defender are “compromised” by their uncomfortably close political ties. (See Folio Weekly’s previous stories on this subject at http://bit.ly/wLLHnV and http://bit.ly/zhVkDP) The report, which Hallett provided to Folio Weekly late last month, begins with an economic observation: that cities such as Orlando, Tampa and Miami have been able to save money by decreasing jail populations in accordance with declining national, state and
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local crime rates. In Duval County, however, while annual arrest rates have dropped from roughly 50,000 to 37,500 over the past five years (a decrease of 25 percent), the local jail population rose from 3,421 to 3,990 — an increase of about 16 percent. According to the report, that’s because local incarceration rates are driven not by crime, but by political aims. “Is the political pressure to get tough on crime so powerful in Jacksonville that it has become the only viable ‘brand’ of criminal justice?” the report asks. “Even worse, is it
conviction rates were mostly in percentages of low to mid-70s. But Hallett observes that it is exactly Corey’s hard-nosed approach that’s causing the costly and unnecessary surge in jail population. Under Corey, the local circuit has seen an increase in criminal complaint filing rates, conviction rates and cases taken to trial. The local filing rate has risen from 52 percent in 2005 to 66 percent in 2010, and the number of charges filed increased from 8,888 to 9,498. That increase was not related
Jacksonville is alone among large Florida cities in seeing a surging jail population at a time of declining crime rates. The new report raises questions about whether this mass incarceration actually “endangers and compromises” local safety. possible that a political machine has emerged around the system with the power to sustain itself indefinitely, regardless of the costs to the community?” For her part, Corey says no. “We don’t apologize for prosecuting violent or repeat offenders,” she says. In a telephone interview, Corey said she’s proud of her record as a zealous prosecutor in the three-county Fourth Judicial District (Clay, Duval and Nassau counties). She insists she isn’t one to toot her own horn — “I don’t hold a whole lot of press conferences. I just want to be left alone and do my job” — but points to a conviction rate of 91.6 percent in fiscal year 2010-’11. By comparison, figures provided by Corey’s office show former State Attorney Harry Shorstein’s
to murder, robbery or sex offenses. Rather, the largest overall increases stemmed from an increase in charges for burglary and theft/ fraud/forgery, which jumped by 35 and 63 percent, respectively. Today, Jacksonville has the highest incarceration rate in the state. Hallett and Corey quibble over some of the report’s statistics. Though both use data from the Office of State Court Administrators, they draw different conclusions. Hallett believes the statistics show Corey’s policies are responsible for packing the jail; Corey says they show she is doing a good job of clearing the streets of criminals. (The pair met recently at her office to discuss the report, and both Corey and Public Defender Matt Shirk have agreed to participate in a University of North Florida