Tuesday, January 9th, marked the start of the 2018 Florida Legislative Session and a chance for the Florida Legislature to make positive strides towards conservative criminal justice reform.

There are several criminal justice reform opportunities that will be discussed this upcoming session that will help guide Florida in the RIGHT direction:

  • Data transparency: Practices must be transparent so that government spending can be held accountable to returns for public safety. Florida needs to track and evaluate criminal justice data to ensure our policies are effective.
  • Judicial Safety Valves: Judges need more sentencing discretion, especially in regard to drug offenders, so that sentencing is determined on a case-by-case basis, rather than relying on mandatory minimums.
  • Fines and Fees: Taxpayers should not foot the bill to jail or imprison people who simply cannot afford fines and fees incurred for traffic violations.
  • Property Theft Threshold: We must increase the property theft threshold to reflect inflation and ensure sentences fit the crime.

These, among several other promising criminal justice reform bills, provide Florida legislators an immense opportunity to shape reform, using conservative values. Right on Crime is leading the conservative case for conservative solutions for the criminal justice system. We work to reduce crime, restore victims, reform offenders, and lower costs to taxpayers. Above all else, Right on Crime believes all legislators must ensure that government performs its public safety responsibilities effectively and efficiently. That means that punishment should fit the crime, and less expensive alternatives to incarceration should be chosen for low-level, non-violent offenders.

Florida’s criminal justice reform opportunities will help the state move toward a more cost effective model that is rightly centered on public safety. We look forward to being a resource to the Florida Legislature and are optimistic that conservative reform is on the horizon!