Criminal Spillover

Ever-increasing crime rates add up to a nationwide scandal. In Florida, they present a particularly virulent problem: the state's criminal-justice system is backing up like a flooded sewer.

Florida crime has quadrupled since 1965, and soon the backlog of court cases became a judicial disaster. In 1971 the state supreme court decreed that defendants would have to be freed if they were not tried within six months for felonies and three months for lesser offenses. After some turmoil, speedy trials became standard. But with more offenders being processed, the jails and prisons began filling. Now they are stuffed to capacity, with two and three men crammed into so-called "single" cells.

Last month authorities announced that they would accept no more inmates at the Lake Butler state prison, where all new prisoners are first processed. That left convicted men stacking up in local lockups. Sheriffs who run those jails began complaining. Faced with a crisis that gets worse every day, Governor Reubin Askew made a desperate decision: some old convicts will be released to make way for the new. Starting next month, accelerated paroles will be given to 1,055 prisoners who are serving the last two years of their sentences and do "not represent any compromise to the safeguards of the community."

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