As crime has dropped over the last two decades, Florida’s incarceration rate has largely stayed the same, and the share of elderly inmates has increased.
That’s according to two reports released this month by the Florida Policy Project, a nonpartisan research group started by former St. Petersburg lawmaker Jeff Brandes that aims to provide evidence-based solutions to Florida’s biggest problems.
Many of the 25,000 people released from Florida prisons each year will end up incarcerated again, the reports say, raising questions about the prison system’s ability to rehabilitate people and driving up costs for taxpayers.