Demand Diversion Programs as an Alternative to Prison Confinement

Our Prisons are overcrowded and understaffed due to an inadequate fiscal budget and then to excessive budget cuts. Poor conditions in our ageing facilities create havoc and poor health conditions and then contribute to the need of additional health care not available due to the shortage of budget. People are dying in record and rising numbers. There are many first time offenders who could be sponsored and put to work in programs earning their keep. Legislation needs to create more diversion programs to thwart those offenders from Prison and put them to work.
Reference: Experience and this article: The Florida Legislature
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Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability
Diverting Low-Risk Offenders from Florida Prisons, Report No. 19-01, January 2019

Full report in PDF format

In 2018, Florida had 144 prison facilities, including 50 major institutions housing 96,253 inmates. Florida’s inmate population is the third largest state prison population in the United States. The Florida Department of Corrections’ total budget for Fiscal Year 2017-18 was $2.4 billion, with the estimated cost to house an inmate at $59.57 per day, or $21,743 annually. Over the past 8 years, both admissions to prison and prison population have decreased. However, Florida continues to have the 10th highest incarceration rate in the United States at 500 per 100,000.
There are multiple points at which offenders can be diverted from the path between arrest and prison, and Florida currently uses many of these diversion programs. Diversion programs include pretrial intervention, plea bargaining, problem-solving courts, and probation. Probation and plea bargaining are the most utilized types of diversion in Florida. Our analysis indicates that there are additional lower-risk offenders who could be diverted from prison, which could likely result in reduced recidivism and long-term cost savings. As such, the Legislature may want to consider various options for diverting additional offenders from prison.

Which Government Program Summaries contain related information?

Department of Corrections
State Courts System

Copies of this report in print or alternate accessible format may be obtained by telephone (850/488-0021), by FAX (850/487-9213), in person, or by mail (OPPAGA Report Production, Claude Pepper Building, Room 312, 111 W. Madison St., Tallahassee, FL 32399-1475).
e-mail address: oppaga@oppaga.fl.gov