Author Topic: Jax's incarceration rate exceeds other big counties as city considers new jail  (Read 8476 times)

thelakelander

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Duval County's incarceration rate exceeds other big counties as city considers new jail

Duval County's incarceration rate is higher than the statewide average and other big urban counties in Florida, putting Jacksonville at a crossroads in its planning for a new jail that would replace the overcrowded facility in downtown at a cost that could hit $1 billion.

Duval County's jail facilities held an average of 3,649 inmates per day in January, but if the county incarceration rate were the same as the statewide average, Duval County's facilities would have held 2,486 inmates, according to a Times-Union analysis of monthly data compiled by the Florida Department of Corrections.

Duval County's incarceration rate is the highest among the 10 largest counties in Florida and could further increase if a new county jail became a "build in and fill it" facility with more beds for housing inmates.

https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/local/2024/03/20/jacksonville-plans-jail-while-struggling-with-high-incarceration-rate/70506284007/
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simms3

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If a person committed a crime, especially a serious one, then I would rather them be locked up than out on the streets committing more crimes.  All this talk about incarceration rates as if the rate itself is the problem...

Jacksonville has some really high crime areas.  If I were a resident of one of these areas, then I would really want the criminals locked up so that I wouldn't be as likely to be victimized!  If anything, with the crime we have on our streets right now, there aren't enough people in jail!  We all know that there's a lot of crime out there, so I'm not surprised that if the cops and the justice system are doing their jobs, then there is going to be a higher incarceration rate.  If there is high crime and a *lower* incarceration rate, then I would be pretty pissed that tax money isn't taking care of the problem.

Lowering the incarceration rate in Duval to "match the statewide average", which includes lots of rural and white picket fence retirement areas that go into that average, means they would be releasing criminals onto the streets.  No thanks.  If we need to build another jail, let's build it, and off the river and away from prime development areas.
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simms3

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I'll just add that reading this article is another reminder why I quit my subscription to this newspaper.  The article that really did it for me was an article about the illegal alien that killed the St. Johns County sheriff's deputy - the article was so biased on the side of the illegal that I nearly threw up.

And here we are with this incarceration rate article.  I just don't know where we are going as a society, but we are in free fall with all of these lines of thinking...
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Zac T

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Nobody in Jacksonville is advocating for people who have committed *serious* crimes to be allowed to roam the streets but quite the opposite. If those who have been charged with petty nonviolent crimes such as possession of a small amount of marijuana or graffiti tagging, both which can carry a sentence in Florida of up to 1 year in jail, can be allowed probation rather than incarceration, it would free up space for those who have committed serious, violent crimes.

Not to mention, the fiscally conservative position on this issue should be to have less nonviolent offenders in jail so we are spending less to maintain and operate a facility that is consistently overcapacity.

Tacachale

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If a person committed a crime, especially a serious one, then I would rather them be locked up than out on the streets committing more crimes.  All this talk about incarceration rates as if the rate itself is the problem...

Jacksonville has some really high crime areas.  If I were a resident of one of these areas, then I would really want the criminals locked up so that I wouldn't be as likely to be victimized!  If anything, with the crime we have on our streets right now, there aren't enough people in jail!  We all know that there's a lot of crime out there, so I'm not surprised that if the cops and the justice system are doing their jobs, then there is going to be a higher incarceration rate.  If there is high crime and a *lower* incarceration rate, then I would be pretty pissed that tax money isn't taking care of the problem.

Lowering the incarceration rate in Duval to "match the statewide average", which includes lots of rural and white picket fence retirement areas that go into that average, means they would be releasing criminals onto the streets.  No thanks.  If we need to build another jail, let's build it, and off the river and away from prime development areas.

What you'd really want is *lower crime*. If high volumes of arrests aren't resulting in lower crime, you look at why that is and what to do about it. Fortunately in Jax we have examples of things that have worked to look back on -- crime reduction initiatives in the 90s and the Jacksonville Journey.
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simms3

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If those who have been charged with petty nonviolent crimes such as possession of a small amount of marijuana or graffiti tagging, both which can carry a sentence in Florida of up to 1 year in jail, can be allowed probation rather than incarceration, it would free up space for those who have committed serious, violent crimes.

Not to mention, the fiscally conservative position on this issue should be to have less nonviolent offenders in jail so we are spending less to maintain and operate a facility that is consistently overcapacity.

Just so you know, there are plenty of plea deals - nobody is going to jail just for marijuana these days.  This is totally a red herring.  Many who go to jail for "tagging" again are known gang members and violent felons with previous records and the good police and the system doing its job will use what they can, even if it's just tagging, to get these criminals off the street.

Not to mention, one way NYC was cleaned up in the 90s into the 2000s was actually just as you say - "Broken Window Theory" treatment on crime.  Start penalizing people for small things and it will flow up the chain to the larger things (it's often the same people anyway).

But also, this whole argument that it's "fiscally conservative" as if that is the winning argument for conservatives these days, you should know, that conservatives are not strictly "fiscal" anymore (and really many weren't but the politicians were).  Conservatives want to return society back to a family oriented, more traditional situation that allows for flourishing for normal, sane hard working people.  So if we need to cut back on spending for DEI initiatives and foreign aid for trans rights in Pakistan or hyper green initiatives where we spend money to prematurely decommission reliable power plants and build a bunch of windmills that don't even come close to replacing the decommissioned power plants, then yes, we can cut back on that spending to build more prisons to house the growing criminal element in our society, in order to protect law abiding citizens, particularly the most vulnerable - women, the elderly, and children.  That would be money well spent to promote a flourishing, safe society.

But just reducing the jail population based on carefully crafted red herring arguments by those with literally the exact opposite ideology in every way from a standard conservative, God-fearing family oriented person, yea those arguments aren't going to work.
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