TALLAHASSEE – Republican gubernatorial candidates have embraced positions on crime in the primary campaign that are reminiscent of promises President Donald Trump made as a candidate.
If elected, their stances could impact how their administration shapes the country’s third-largest prison system, the allotment of state criminal justice resources and Florida's law enforcement practices when it comes to enforcing immigration law.
The candidates, Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam and U.S. Ron DeSantis, are unapologetic in their campaigns when they tell supporters what needs to be done to ensure Floridians are safe.
But so far, Putnam is the only candidate who has rolled out a comprehensive public safety agenda, which he dubs “Secure Florida First.”
DeSantis, who has been endorsed by Trump, has yet to release details on specific public safety policy plans. He would not agree to interview requests made through his campaign staff, and his political team did not respond to numerous requests for comment.
Under a Putnam administration, the candidate envisions expanding the state’s role in helping enforce federal immigration law by empowering state law enforcement agencies to aid in the deportation process. Putnam views immigration as a public safety issue, and cracking down on it, he says, will lower the state prison population occupied by “criminal illegal aliens” and save taxpayer money.
Putnam’s agenda also includes increasing funding for law enforcement training and maintaining current mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines for violent offenders and drug traffickers.
Even as conservative organizations like the Koch Industries-backed Right on Crime lobby Florida's Republican-controlled Legislature to depart from the state’s “ineffective” mandatory minimum sentencing laws, Putnam, who is largely backed by the Republican political establishment, seeks to uphold these guidelines.
Sen. Jeff Brandes, a St. Petersburg Republican who chairs the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Criminal and Civil Justice, said he hopes to see a “reform-minded” governor elected.
“There’s a movement around the country right now to rethink the strategies that are implemented over the last two decades because they are largely not working,” Brandes said. “Best practices show that treatment works better than incarceration.”
Death penalty
Putnam, however, says he will veto any attempt to loosen criminal penalties for drug traffickers and violent offenders and agrees that criminals should serve at least 85 percent of their sentence before being eligible for release.
“There are liberals who are looking to water down many of the strong sentencing guidelines that have made this 47-year low in our crime rate possible,” Putnam said in June during a Tampa campaign event.
“There are also those who refuse to pursue the death penalty against cop killers. That won’t happen in a Putnam administration,” he added.
DeSantis, a former federal and military prosecutor, in 2015 also supported legislation in Congress that would have allowed those convicted of killing or attempting to kill a police officer or first responder to be eligible for the death penalty.
During a Citrus County campaign stop in May, DeSantis slammed “liberals” in the Florida Supreme Court for overturning the death penalty for an inmate convicted in the 2004 sexual assault and murder of an 11-year-old girl for what he said was a “technicality.”
That “technicality” stemmed from a 2016 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that found the state’s death penalty process to be unconstitutional because it gave too much authority to judges, instead of a unanimous jury. Lawmakers changed the requirement earlier this year to require a unanimous decision.
After DeSantis expressed his opinion on the issue, an audience member yelled: “I have a tree and a rope in my backyard. Bring back the hanging tree!” The statement was followed by a roar of laughter in the crowd as DeSantis continued his comments.
Clemency
These tough-on-crime promises resemble some of those made on the campaign trail by Trump when he was a candidate — incendiary rhetoric that energized a base of supporters when Trump promised the death penalty for cop killers, deporting undocumented immigrants and imposing minimum sentences for violent offenders. A vast majority of GOP primary voters remain loyal to the president and will have an effect on election results come the August primary.
Yet there are criminal justice issues specific to Florida that Trump has not touched on and that affect millions of Floridians,
Florida, for example, is home to about 1.7 million people who have lost their voting rights, and the state’s clemency process has been deemed unconstitutional and "fatally flawed" by a federal court ruling. Putnam, who sits on the clemency board, has said calling the state's arbitrary process unconstitutional is “extreme,” and he supports an appeal of the federal ruling.
DeSantis has not addressed the issue, but in 2014, while in Congress, he voted for language in legislation that would have banned funding or temporarily adding personnel to assist in the screening of clemency applications at the federal level.
In November, when voters elect the next governor, they will also have the chance to vote on a ballot measure that would automatically restore voting rights to disenfranchised felons in the state.
Corrections
Florida is also home to one of the highest inmate populations in the country, and it has seven privately run correctional facilities, the vast majority of those operated by The GEO Group, which has given $50,000 to both the Putnam and DeSantis political committees.
The private prison corporation would not answer questions about why it supports the GOP candidates. Company spokesman Pablo Paez said it looks forward to continue partnering with the state to “achieve better rehabilitation and recidivism reduction outcomes.”
Putnam makes no mention of what he hopes to implement or promote to achieve better treatment for the incarcerated. DeSantis hasn’t either.