The Execution Office of the governor

            and the department of Corrections have combined efforts to reduce gun crime in Florida by using the message in the 10-20-life public information initiative, project safe neighborhoods, and project child safe to inform Floridians about guns and gun crime. The department has received a $170,000;project safe Northern District of Florida. Florida with it’s explaining efforts to reduce gun crime through federal prosecution of gun crimes, or under 10-20-life to assure that offenders receive the maximum sentence. It was said that if you fit into any of these categories you were prohibited from possessing any kind of gun or ammunition:

•        Convicted felons convicted at state or federal level
•        Fugitives from justice interstate flight to avoid prosecution or testimony
•        Drug user or addicts
•        Alien in the U.S illegally or non-immigrant aliens
•        Mental defectives or person committed at any time to mental institutions
•        People who have formally given up their U.S citizenship
•        People who have been dishonorably discharged from the armed services

People involved in committing domestic violence:

Anyone subject to a court order (protective order) forbidding him or her from stalking, harassing, or threatening an intimate partner or that partner’s child. Also anyone convicted of a misdemeanor crime involving violence or a treat with a deadly weapon if the convicted person was the victim’s current or former spouse, live-in boyfriend or girlfriend, or parent or guardian.

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In 1998, criminals in Florida used guns to commit 31,643 violent felonies, including 13,937-armed robberies. That year, the mandatory punishment using a gun to commit a violent felony was only three years in prison.  The 1998 campaign for Governor Jeb Bush proposed the toughest gun-crime law in the nation: 10-20-Life. Under 10-20- Life, a felon who used a gun to commit a crime like armed robbery would face at least 10 years in state prison. The 1999 Florida Legislature passed sweeping legislation that provides for enhanced minimum mandatory prison terms for offenders who commit crimes with guns.

 Only in Florida violent gun crimes continue to decline since 10-20-life became a law and was the focus of a $1.3 million public awareness campaign. The 2000 Florida Legislature extended the mandatory prison sentences required by 10-20-life to 16 and 17-years olds who discharge a gun and those offenders who had prior records. The violent gun crime rate in 2000 decline by 26.4 percent as compared to 1998 when the law was first stated by Governor Jeb Bush. Jeb Bush also stated in April 2001 that “certainty of punishment provided in the 10-20-life era is reducing and preventing violent gun crimes.” The Florida’s 2000 index crime was the lowest in 28 years. The 200 Index-Crime rates were based on murder, forcible sex, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and motor vehicle theft. Of all 10-20-life felons, most (53.8%) received their longest term for using a gun in a crime. Less than half (46.2%) were sentenced of felon possessing a gun. Likewise, among the small number of female 10-20-life felons (104), more than half (54.8%) received their longest term for using a gun in a crime and (45.2%) were sentenced for the crime of felon possessing a gun. Using a gun in a crime accounted for the longest 10-20-Life mandatory sentence for 47.1% of white non-Hispanics, for 55.8% of black non-Hispanics, and for 59.6% of Hispanics. Among 10-20-life felons who used a gun in a crime, those whose longest mandatory term was 10 years comprised 73.2% of white non-hispanics,74.1% of black non-Hispanics, and 69.4% of all Hispanics.

 Age when crime was committed

 Sentencing under the 10-20-life law suggests the differences among in the way gun-related crime occurs according to age group. Of felons receiving any 10-20-life sentence, only 6.0% committed their crime while under the age of 18. Of felons whose longest 10-20-life sentence was for using a gun in a crime, 51.9% were between the ages of 18 and 24 when they committed the crime,22.8% were between ages 25 and 34, and12.1% were between ages 35 and 49. Of felons whose longest 10-20-life sentence for felon possessing a gun, 36.3% were between the ages 25 and 34 when they committed their crime, 32.1% were between ages 18 and 24,and 26.4% were ages 35 and 49. Of 10-20-life felons sentenced for using a gun in a crime, only 17.7% of those under age 18 fired the gun, whereas 41.9%of those age 35 or older did. Of 10-20-life felons ages 18 to 24 when the crime was committed, most (50.7%) displayed the gun during the crime, whereas about one-third (34.7%) were convicted as felons possessing a gun. Older 10-20-life felons are more likely to be convicted as felons possessing a gun as compared with displaying the gun: 57.6% of those ages 25 to 34 when the crime was committed, and 65.2% of those ages 35 to 49. However, because this charge depends on a prior felony conviction, this may simply be the result of older felons being more likely to have a prior felony.

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There are hundreds of cases like this.  Many of the prisoners in Florida who are eligible for parole and more than half of them are over the age of 50, are still fighting the parole board for their release from prison.  In the 2005 legislative session, the Florida Legislature considered abolishing the Parole Commission and reassigning its duties to other agencies. Specifically, the proposal recommended granting control over the administrative and investigative functions related to clemency to the Executive Office of the Governor;  granting parole authority to all-volunteer regional parole boards, housed administratively within the Office of the Attorney General; and granting the authority over revocation, and setting conditional, control, and addiction recovery release terms to the sentencing court.  They are currently conducting a review of the Parole Commission and, as part of this analysis, will evaluate the impact of this proposal on program efficacy and efficiency.  While clemency continues to occupy the majority of the commission’s time, the commission has taken steps to reduce the backlog of cases.

 While the Parole Commission has responsibilities for parole and other post-release supervision programs, nearly half of its resources—estimated at 49% of staff time, based on a Fiscal Year 2003-04 time-motion study—are devoted to clemency activities (www.myflorida.gov). Progress has been made reducing the backlog of clemency cases that had accumulated by 2001; in June 2003, commission staff completed the investigations of 10,000 applicants for executive clemency to fulfill the terms of a legal agreement with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Department of Corrections, and other parties.  In addition, the commission shortened the amount of time required to investigate an applicant.  Hopefully with some of the new studies and investigations going on,  this can help the prisoners who have paid their dues to society the right to freedom that as citizens, we are granted and as human beings, we are born with.

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Eglin Federal Prison Camp. Arrested in 1979, Robert Platshorn, a Miami auto dealer, was convicted in a highly publicized marijuana conspiracy. Dubbed by the prosecutor as the “Black Tuna’, Platshorn was sentenced to 64 years in prison; consecutive terms of 31 years parolable and 33 years non-parolable.  Even though it was his first offense with no history of violence, the government cited “broad publicity’ as good cause to ship the Tuna off to the Super-Max penitentiary at Marion, Illinois. Admitting that might have been a mistake, the Federal Bureau of Prisons eventually let Platshorn serve his term in medium and low security prisons. At age 63, nine years after his release date, he currently resides at the Federal work camp on Eglin Air Force base in Florida.  Platshorn is one of the few “old law’ prisoners remaining in the Federal prison system who can be released on parole. Under the “old law’ most offenders could be paroled after serving a maximum of ten years. But Platshorn’s 33 year non-parolable sentence would have to be served before he could be released on his 64 year sentence. “Old law’ prisoners can earn up to fifteen days a month “good time’ so Platshorn would reach his parole eligibility in 1997 after serving eighteen years. As a first offender, his parole guidelines only called for him to serve 40 to 52 months in prison. It was very unlikely that his parole would be delayed past 1997. What was to happen is bizarre.  In late 1986 the parole commission was given 5 years to set a parole date for every “old law’ inmate in Federal prison. 70,000 parole hearings took place within 60 months (www.angelfire.com). Parole commission rules called for Platshorn to receive a “parole presumptive’ to become effective when he became eligible for release from the 64 year sentence in 1997. “Old law’ defines parole as “conditional supervised release to the community ( www.myflorida.gov). Release is the objective of parole, either to the community or to another authority such as the INS for deportation. But not for Bobby Tuna!

 In 1989, seeing that Platshorn had served more than the ten years required by statute and much more than the 40 to 52 months called for in the guidelines, the parole board saw “no reason to delay parole’. Rather than follow the law and grant a “parole presumptive’ for a time when Platshorn would be eligible to leave prison, they mistakenly paroled him from his parolable to his non-parolable term, not on the 64 year aggregate sentence as required by law. Now after serving over ten years, he would have to start serving the required 18 years all over again. Already paroled, he would have to serve 28 years in prison instead of the eighteen years the law required. Platshorn is suing the Federal court in the District of Columbia to compel the parole commission to follow its own rules. To void the early parole and reissue a parole notice for the day he was actually eligible for parole, 1997, which was 9 years ago.  The authorities at Eglin acknowledged that Platshorn should have been released on his existing parole years ago. They claim that the fault lies with the parole board, and have been told by regional office not to intervene. Warden Donald Baunecht, who has known Platshorn since his arrest in 1979, was surprised to find him still incarcerated after 25 years. The warden knows of no other inmate ever paroled from one Federal sentence to another.

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Parole is the release of an inmate prior to the expiration of the inmate’s sentence with a period of supervision to follow. The Legislature abolished parole in 1983 for all offenders who were sentenced under sentencing guidelines enacted that same year. As a result, only inmates sentenced before October 1, 1983, and selected inmates convicted of capital felonies before October 1, 1995, are eligible for parole. No offenses committed after October 1, 1995 are parole eligible.  Of the approximately 86,559 inmates in Florida prisons on December 31, 2005, only 5,176 or 6.0% of them remain parole eligible. Only 53 (or 0.2%) of the 32,331 inmates released from Florida prisons in 2005 were paroled (www.jointogether.com).  Its Actions like this that have an enormous amount of people wondering what is going on and why out of all the inmates that are released each year, only 0.2% of them are parolee?

 Florida’s get tough on crime laws resulted in the process of eliminating the whole parole board and mandating that every prisoner serve at least 85% of their sentence.  Alot of people were not happy with these new laws especially the commission who runs the parole board.  According to its mission statement, the Florida Parole Commission protects the public by administering parole, conditional release, conditional medical release, control release, and addiction recovery supervision to all eligible criminal offenders. Additionally, the commission administers the clemency process for the Executive Clemency Board pursuant to the Rules of Executive Clemency.  They determine who is released to parole and conditional medical release the commission determines which parole eligible offenders are likely to succeed as law abiding citizens, if released into the community on parole. As of May 31, 2005, there were 5,204 parole-eligible offenders still in prison; prisoners sentenced after October 1983—when parole was abolished—are ineligible for parole. In Fiscal Year 2003-04, the commission scheduled 445 hearings for parole consideration, and 46 offenders were granted parole. An additional 1,105 hearings were scheduled for the setting or review of a presumptive parole release date (PPRD), or the initial date at which an inmate will be considered for parole (www.cjpf.org). The commission also determines whether terminally ill prisoners should be released from prison through conditional medical release.

 With so many prisoners being released each year, why aren’t the prisoners who are eligible for parole being released.  Many argue that the parole does not want to release so many prisoners because once all the prisoners who are eligible for parole are out of prison, then there isn’t a need for the parole board and they will all be out of jobs.  So by keeping as many prisoners who are eligible for parole in prison, which guarantees them the job security that they desperately seek.  Many of the prisoners who are eligible for parole are over 50 and should have been released from prison a long time ago.  But because of the fear of not having a job in the near future, the parole board are holding on to as many prisoners as they can and only letting out barely any prisoners who are eligible for parole.

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