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Florida Fact Sheet: What Caused The Crime Decline?
Florida Fact Sheet: What Caused The Crime Decline?
Increased incarceration had a limited effect on reducing crime for the last two
decades: Increased incarceration had some effect, likely somewhere around 0-10 percent,
on reducing crime from 1990 to 2000. Since 2000, however, increased incarceration had an
almost zero effect on crime. Further, a number of states -- California, Michigan, New Jersey,
New York, and Texas -- have successfully reduced imprisonment while crime continued to
fall.
Other factors reduced crime: Increased numbers of police officers, some data-driven
policing techniques, changes in income, decreased alcohol consumption, and an aging
* Lauren-Brooke Eisen is Counsel and Julia Bowling is Research Associate at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. They
are co-authors of What Caused the Crime Decline?
population played a role in reducing crime. In particular, this report finds that the policing
technique known as CompStat is associated with a 5 to 15 percent decrease in crime. A
review of past research indicates that consumer confidence and inflation also likely
contributed to crime reduction.
Incarceration & Crime in Florida
As illustrated in Figure 1, Florida imprisoned 527 people per 100,000, a higher rate than the U.S. at
large.
Criminal justice reform in Florida has been slow to arrive. In 2012, the legislature passed a law to
reduce mandatory minimums for drug offenders, but it was vetoed by Gov. Rick Scott. In July 2014,
legislation to eliminate mandatory minimums for some low-level drug offenders became law. As the
first state to create a drug court in 1989, Florida continues to expand its use of specialty courts. But
without major reforms, the state continues to suffer from high rates of recidivism, probation
violations, and juveniles graduating to the adult system.
Figure 1: Imprisonment Rates in Florida and the U.S. (1980-2013)
As shown in Figure 2, as incarceration rose from 1980 (when Florida had 20,735 prisoners), the
effectiveness of increased incarceration adding new prisoners steadily declined. By 2002,
imprisonment exceeded 75,000 prisoners, and effectiveness on crime declined to essentially zero.
The marginal effect on crime of adding more people to prisons remains at essentially zero today.
This reports findings support further reforms to reduce Floridas incarcerated population and
show this can be achieved without added crime.