ICYMI: Great Talk On Florida Prison Reform

Last night the Charles Koch Institute held a talk at the Florida State University College of Law on prison reform. Here’s the full video:

It’s a great talk and worth watching the whole thing. Here’s some notable highlights:

• Florida transfers more children than any state in the country from the juvenile to the adult criminal system;
• Florida has the seventh highest incarceration rate in the country;
• In Florida a person can be convicted of drug trafficking, not just possession, for having only a small number of pills;
• Many of Florida’s mandatory minimum laws have no real foundation in the realities of crime and rehabilitation;
• Other states like Texas, Georgia and Alabama are ahead of Florida in making strides towards reforming their criminal justice systems.

It’s clear that Florida needs to address its growing prison population through a number of ways. Whether or not this will happen any time soon is up to the Florida legislature.