Measures for Justice is a data-driven nonprofit tracking county-by-county data for crime, arrests, prosecutions, and more in an effort to assess—and hold accountable—the criminal justice system and attempts at reform.
The project is supported by Florida prosecutors, legal experts, and former attorney general Richard Doran, among others. Florida is one of just six states for which the project has collected county data along 32 metrics, including:
- the average length of a jail stay for a misdemeanor (from 12 days in one Florida county to 180 days in another).
- the average cost of court fees (from $600 in one Washington county, compared to more than $2300 in others).
- the number of court cases that get dismissed (from 23 percent in some North Carolina counties to 62 percent in others).
Measures for Justice director of research Dr. Gipsy Escobar joins Gulf Coast Live alongside Walton County Sheriff Michael Adkinson and Deborrah Brodsky with Florida's Project on Accountable Justice to discuss what the county-by-county data reveals about Florida's criminal justice system, and how that data can be used to inform both policy decisions and reform efforts.
