Officials say arrests in Florida down during past 5 years

With an annual budget of $2.3 billion and more than 23,000 positions, the Florida Department of Corrections is among the largest  — and most important — agencies in the state. As a department that relies heavily on general revenue for funding, reductions in revenue have undoubtedly played a part in the problems that have grown inside the system.

As the Senate Criminal Justice Committee heard about issues of corruption within the DOC, the House Justice Appropriation Committee on Tuesday learned several facts and figures about the DOC — including that crime have been dropping for several years, echoing a national trend since the late 1990s.

Among the statistics mentioned Tuesday was that although the state inmate population has stayed between 99,000 and 102,000 in recent years, it has been dropping during the past four years.

The number of offenses decreased in 2013 by 4% from 2012. The 698,607 index crimes reported in 2013 was lower than reported in any year since 1979. It’s the fifth year in a row in which index offenses have declined. Index crimes include murder and non-negligent homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, arson, and auto theft.

The crime rate fell 4.7% in 2013. That’s not as substantial as in 2012, when it fell by 6.5%.

Arrests declined by 5.8% in 2013. The largest percentage decrease in index offense arrests was in burglary, down 13.5%.

Arrests for the first six months of 2014 were down 4.3% from 2013.

After essentially no change in 2011, the number of felony filings has declined during the past three years. The number of filings declined by 2.2% in 2012, by 8.3% in 2013, and by 5% in 2014.

The average sentence length of a new prisoner in the system is 58.9 months, or 4.9 years.

Department of Corrections secretary Julie Jones told lawmakers that she’s already “overcapacity in certain facilities,” warning them that another budget reduction would damage the department.

“We’re taking a very proactive approach, working with the (budget) estimators so that the budget projection matches the reality on the ground and the facilities itself,” she said. She also said she needed to do a habitability study on all of the department’s buildings.