Key Findings
- The Black-White imprisonment disparity in Florida prisons fell 41%, from 8-to-1 to 4.6-to-1, during the period from 2000 to 2019. The largest disparity reduction occurred in imprisonment for drug offenses, with the rate for Black adults decreasing by 60% and the rate for White adults increasing by 75%.
- Changes in prison admissions were the primary drivers of the disparity reduction, while changes in length of stay provided a slight counter-balancing effect. The overall admission rate disparity fell by 44% during the study period.
- Statutory changes to sentencing appeared to have had no effect on disparity. Analysis indicates that none of the laws implemented during the study period led to statistically detectable effects on racial disparity.
Research by the Council on Criminal Justice Pushing Toward Parity project shows that the gap between Black and White state imprisonment rates nationwide has narrowed significantly since the start of the 21st century. To better understand the trends and identify policies and practices that may drive them, the Council chose 12 states for closer investigation.
This brief on Florida outlines the key state disparity trends, summarizes the potential influences on them, and statistically assesses the impact of those influences on the trends.
Notes
Although this brief acknowledges trends and factors from the pre-study period of 2000 to 2009, the scope of the analyses is limited to circumstances present in the state between 2010 and 2019. This brief also acknowledges potential disparity trend factors that implicate variables beyond the scope of this brief. For more details on methodology, framing considerations, and limitations, see the supplemental methodology report.
Click here for an overview of Florida's resident and prison population demographics.
GLOSSARY
- Disparity ratios are a measure that compares imprisonment rates across two groups of people. A Black-White imprisonment disparity ratio of 3-to-1, for example, means that Black adults are incarcerated at three times the rate of White adults. A ratio of one indicates no difference between the two groups, or “parity.” A disparity ratio lower than one means that Black adults are less likely to experience imprisonment than White adults.
- New court commitments refer to prison admissions that result from a conviction for a new crime rather than for violations of community supervision.
- Rates are calculated per 100,000 respective adults. For example, the Black imprisonment rate is calculated per 100,000 Black adults. All rates refer to adult state prison populations; those in federal prisons and local jails are excluded.
- Parity refers to a disparity ratio of 1 (1-to-1).
Racial Disparities in Florida
Between 2000 and 2020, the overall Black-White imprisonment rate disparity1 in Florida fell by 41%, from 8-to-1 to 4.7-to-1 (Figure 1). This decrease was led by a 76% drop in the drug offense imprisonment rate disparity ratio. Violent offenses had the smallest decrease in disparity ratio, falling by 31%.
Figure 1: Black and White Imprisonment Rate Disparity Ratios by Major Offense Category, 2000–2020
Overall and for each offense category, more than 80% of the total decrease in disparity throughout the study period occurred from 2000 to 2010. The 2000 to 2010 decrease in imprisonment disparity occurred almost exclusively due to increases in White imprisonment rates (Figure 2). From 2000 to 2010, overall, and for violent, property, and drug offenses, the White imprisonment rates increased while changes in Black imprisonment rates varied. For example, for violent offenses, the Black rate followed a “U-shaped” pattern of decrease to increase from 2000 to 2010 before starting a steady decrease through 2020. By comparison, from 2000 to 2010, the overall, violent crime, and property crime imprisonment rates for Black people decreased by less than 3%, while the respective White rates increased between 31% and 47% (Figure 2). During this same time period, the Black drug offense imprisonment rate fell by 20% while the White rate doubled, indicating that an increase in the White drug offense imprisonment rate accounted for almost all of the decrease in disparity. From 2011 to 2020, overall imprisonment rates for both Black and White people decreased, but the drop in the Black rate was larger. For example, the overall White imprisonment rate decreased by 30% from 2011 to 2020, while the Black rate decreased by 35%. The overall Black imprisonment rate, as well as rates in all three crime categories, dropped steadily from 2000 to 2019; during this same time period, the commensurate rates for White people exhibited a curvilinear pattern, rising during the first decade and then beginning to fall. In 2020, Black and White imprisonment rates fell by considerably larger percentages (e.g., 17% and 18% for the overall rates, respectively) due to responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. These single-year percent changes are three to eight times larger than any other single-year changes during the study period.
Figure 2: Black and White Imprisonment Rates by Major Offense Category, 2000–2020
Because of the differential growth rates of imprisonment across offense categories, the race-specific composition of the prison population in Florida changed during the study period. From 2000 to 2020, the share of the Black incarcerated population held for violent crimes rose from 51% to 63%, while the share held for property crimes fell slightly, from 17% to 15%, and the share held for drug offenses halved, from 25% to 12% (Figure 3, which includes 2019 numbers to depict the effect of the pandemic). During the same time period, the shares of the White incarcerated population held for both violent crimes (54% to 57%) and drug offenses (8% to 10%) increased, while the share held for property crimes dropped (from 29% to 24%).
Figure 3: Shares of Incarcerated Population by Race, 2000–2019
Disparity in Prison Admissions and Length of Stay
Although admission rate disparity ratios were not as large as imprisonment rate disparity ratios, they roughly followed the same pattern. In 2000, admission rate disparity was 7.4-to-1; by 2020 the disparity ratio fell by 57% to 3.2 (Figure 4). This overall pattern of a lower admission rate disparity than imprisonment rate disparity also occurred across offense categories.
Figure 4: Black-White Admissions Rate Disparity by Offense Category, 2000–2020
Similar to trends observed in imprisonment rate disparity, more than 85% of the decrease in admission rate disparity occurred between 2000 and 2010. For example, 86% of the total drop in disparity for violent crime admissions and 83% of the drop in drug offense admissions disparity occurred between 2000 and 2010. The decrease in disparity was primarily due to a faster rate of decrease in the Black admission rate than in the White rate, a trend that began in 2005 (Figure 5).
Figure 5: Admissions Rates by Offense Category and Race, 2000–2020
Overall
Violent Offenses
Property Offenses
Drug Offenses
From 2000 to 2019,2 overall length of stay for Black people admitted to prison fell faster than it did for White people (down 29% compared to 17%) (Figure 6). Length of stay for Black people admitted for violent crime dropped by 33%, while it fell 28% for White people. For Black people, the drop in the admission rate (51%) was larger than the decrease in length of stay (29%) from 2000 to 2019. For White people during the same time period, the admission rate increased by 7% and length of stay decreased by 17%. These differential trends indicate that admissions and length of stay contributed to imprisonment disparity in distinct ways for Black and White people. For Black people, admissions growth was more of a factor in reducing imprisonment disparity, whereas for White people, length of stay slowed the growth in the White imprisonment rate, thereby slowing the reduction in disparity.
Figure 6: Percent Change in Admission Rates and Length of Stay by Offense Category, 2000–2019
Potential Disparity Trend Factors
Florida’s prison population experienced steady and significant growth from 2000 to 2010, at which point the population level plateaued and began to decline. Despite few relevant statewide policy changes or political influences, stakeholders listed several factors that likely influenced these trends. These factors included shifts in drug use and sales, the availability of alternatives to incarceration, and an overall shift in sentencing for drug offenses triggered by a greater understanding of addiction research, and leadership changes.
Political Context
Since 2000, Republicans in Florida have controlled the governor’s office as well as the attorney general’s office and both chambers of the legislature. Republicans continue to control the leadership in the Senate and House, and their margins have grown over the past two election cycles.
Practice Reforms
Despite the absence of policies that may have influenced prison admission trends, stakeholders indicated that several factors likely helped reverse the upward trajectory of prison admissions after 2008. The first drug court in the country was founded in 1989 in Miami.3 Over the next 30 years, a range of additional problem-solving courts (e.g., mental health, DUI, and veterans) were established throughout the state, and by 2016, there were 107 such courts in Florida. An analysis of prison admissions by county showed that counties with the highest admission rates had limited or no adult drug courts, and counties with drug courts had lower admissions to prison relative to other counties.4
Additional Contextual Factors
Several important policy decisions–all made prior to 2000–affected the size of the prison population during the study period. Florida ended parole for most offenses in 1983, and for all offenses in the mid-1990s, which resulted in increasingly fewer parole releases throughout the study period. Additionally, in 1995 the state passed legislation requiring all people to serve at least 85% of their judicial sentence in prison.5 Additionally, in 1998, Florida codified the Criminal Punishment Code, which served–and continues to serve–as a quasi-sentencing guidelines mechanism for sentencing decisions. Other changes that occurred during the study period also appeared to influence prison admissions and the size of Florida’s prison population, although statewide policy was not enacted. For example, stakeholders noted how increased awareness of research on mental health and substance use disorders as well as how social factors influence crime shifted public perception about whether incarceration was the most effective response to many low-level crimes. Specifically, stakeholders indicated that growing empirical and public support for treatment-focused responses to substance use and low-level drug offenses, coupled with decreased use of cocaine in the state, were important factors in the declining prison admissions observed after 2010. In some jurisdictions, local law enforcement leaders increased the use of alternatives to incarceration and diversion programs, publicly stating their support for these responses for low-level criminal activity. For example, in Miami-Dade County, the state attorney worked with the public defender’s office to divert people away from incarceration and into treatment programs or other community supports. Both Duval (Jacksonville) and Hillsborough (Tampa) counties elected state attorneys who advocated for more measured approaches to criminal sanctions for people with substance use-related offenses, focusing on community-based responses rather than incarceration. Several jurisdiction-level responses were observed, but Florida did not adopt significant legislative or executive order policies intended to decrease the growth of the current prison population during the study period. Stakeholders noted that Florida’s geographically-distinct cultures made enacting statewide policy difficult, largely leaving policy change to local decision-makers. Finally, changes to post-release supervision policy and practice in Florida also affected admissions trends during the study period. Stakeholders indicated that prison admissions due to “parole violations” increased despite very few people being eligible for parole in the 2000s. However, a practice called “split sentencing” was statutorily authorized in 2005 and led to many people being placed on probation after serving their prison sentence. By 2009, stakeholders noted how large caseloads led to an increase in the number of people being returned to jail for post-release probation supervision violations, as there was little time for probation officers to effectively manage their clients. During this time, stakeholders indicated that criminal history began to play a more substantial role in determining an individual’s chance of a revocation, which resulted in increasing numbers of Black people being revoked as over-policing in urban communities of color had resulted in Black people having more extensive criminal records.
Statutory Reforms
Between 2011 and 2019, Florida passed or implemented 43 bills (containing 54 provisions) that included changes to criminal sentencing. These bills were reviewed for inclusion in this analysis based on targeted populations, scope, and content, yielding 42 bills for further study.6 A review of the 42 candidate bills produced six themes that characterized sentencing reform in Florida during the study period. Based solely on the frequency of the themes, sentencing changes in Florida were dominated by those that focused on:
- increasing or decreasing sentencing severity (34 laws)
- creating new offense categories (21 laws)
- expanding or restricting the discretion of criminal justice agency actors (15 laws)
- repeat offenders (11 laws)
Less prevalent were reforms that focused on:
- treatment programming (one law)
- good time or early release (one law)
Twenty-seven bills focused on specific offense classes, while the remaining bills broadly applied to justice-involved groups (e.g., probationers and parolees) or special populations (e.g., school authorities) or dealt with offense categories. Of the bills that focused on specific offenses, six targeted fraud and theft; four focused on voyeurism, commercial sex, and prostitution; three dealt with drug offenses; two each addressed violent offenses, sex offenses, crimes against minors, computer-based crimes and terrorism, and firearm violations; and one each focused on burglary and hit-and-run offenses. Many of the provisions in the candidate bills were beyond the scope of the current study. Because of this, the following analysis only addresses subsets of reforms whose elements could be measured:
- SB 526 (October 2014), a bill that created a second-degree felony offense for lewd acts against minors and created a first-degree felony for subsequent relevant offenses.7
- HB 7049 (July 2012), which created a first-degree felony offense for certain coercion, human trafficking, and sex trafficking offenses.
- HB 409 (October 2014), a bill that created a second-degree felony offense for certain types of fraud.
- SB 360 (July 2014), which created new first-degree felony offenses and mandatory minimum sentences for certain drug offenses involving hydrocodone or oxycodone.
Analysis
The examination of the impacts of legislative changes on disparity levels in Florida included an analysis of Black-White differences in preexisting trends and patterns, shifts in preexisting levels associated with the implementation of reforms, and post-reform trends. Analyses are detailed in the supplemental methodology report.8 The results show no significant racial differences in post-reform trends.
SB 526
No racial differences were found in admission trends after SB 526 went into effect (not shown). Likewise, no racial differences were found in sentences imposed on Black and White people convicted of lewd acts against minors after the law was implemented (Figure 7).
Figure 7: Sentence Length Imposed on New Court Commitments, by Race
HB 7049
There were no admissions for human trafficking sex offenses until 2015, which was nearly three years after HB 7049 was implemented. From 2015 to 2020, monthly admissions for Black and White people for these charges increased. The respective trends in monthly admissions increased faster for White people than for Black people (not shown), but there were no statistically significant racial differences in length of sentence imposed for these offenses (Figure 8).
Figure 8: Sentence Length Imposed on New Court Commitments, by Race
HB 409
Following HB 409, the number of new court commitments for the types of fraud targeted by this law increased for Black and White people, but there were no statistically significant differences in the level of post-reform admission trends. There were also no statistically significant racial differences in length of sentence imposed for these offenses.
SB 360
From 2015 to 2020, there were 55 new court commitments for hydrocodone offenses; there were none prior to 2015. Roughly half of the people admitted with these charges were Black and half were White. There were also equal proportions of Black and White people in the mandatory minimum categories stipulated by drug quantity. There were no statistically significant post-reform racial differences in length of sentence for hydrocodone offenses, controlling for drug quantity. From 2015 to 2020, there were 116 new court commitments for oxycodone offenses. Seventy-four of the people admitted were Black and 42 were White. Roughly 10 Black people and seven White people were admitted for oxycodone offenses annually. There were no statistically significant post-reform racial differences in length of sentence for oxycodone offenses, controlling for drug quantity.
Discussion
Racial disparity in imprisonment rates in Florida did not change appreciably from 2011 to 2019, even though it declined from 2000 to 2010. The increase in the White imprisonment rate during the first decade of the study period fueled the drop in the imprisonment racial disparity ratio from 8-to-1 to 5.3-to-1. From 2011 to 2020, the disparity ratio fell further in Florida, to 4.7. Imprisonment rates for both Black and White people fell at roughly comparable rates during the second decade of the 21st century, although the Black rate fell more sharply (35%) than the White rate (30%). Resembling national trends, decreases in disparity were the largest for drug offenses. A myriad of sentencing reforms implemented between 2010 and 2020 affected small populations across Florida’s criminal justice system, but they had no impact on racial disparity in the state. Where data permitted analysis, no racial differences in post-reform outcomes were observed.
Florida, like any state, has a distinct political and demographic history that influences the discussion of what does or does not work when addressing disparity in the criminal justice system. This state brief is one of 12 in the Pushing Toward Parity project, all of which seek to identify, what, if any, policy changes are associated with shifts in racial disparity and can serve as examples for states pursuing equity in their criminal justice system.
