Florida Politics by Janelle Irwin Taylor
November 29, 2019
As the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida seeks to address “over-incarceration” rates within the Florida Department of Corrections, the nonprofit organization filed a lawsuit seeking public records.
In a lawsuit filed in Leon County last week, the ACLU requested state data on prison demographics, charged offenses, tentative release dates and information the Department of Corrections used to calculate the tentative release dates.
The group is seeking information to better understand the racial disparities within Florida prisons.
The organization previously filed a public records request with the Department of Corrections Sept. 30 that has gone unanswered.
“The ACLU of Fla. is concerned about the over-incarceration in our state as well as the racial disparity of those incarcerated. It hopes to propose an amendment [to Florida State Statute] to decrease the term a person with gain time must serve below the current ‘minimum of 85%’ of the sentence,” the group wrote in its request.