November 16, 2022

In March of 2021, Broward State Attorney Harold F. Pryor and the State Attorney’s Office joined a network of nationally recognized researchers and prosecutors who are committed to increasing transparency and accountability by objectively measuring and analyzing prosecutorial practices.

The State Attorney’s Office partnered with Florida International University (FIU) and Loyola University Chicago to measure Prosecutorial Performance Indicators (PPIs), as part of State Attorney Pryor’s commitment to making the criminal justice system as transparent and accountable as possible. This innovative partnership is part of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge, which is funding the Broward research.

State Attorney Pryor asked the PPIs to take an objective look at how cases are handled by the office and to produce this report, which was published on Nov. 16, 2022.

State Attorney Pryor said: “Our office has been working closely with the Prosecutorial Performance Indicators (PPI) team in order to take an objective look at how cases are handled in this office. The main reason for this is not that I think there are significant problems with how the vast majority of prosecutors in the office do their job, but because we have a responsibility to be transparent regarding how cases are handled. It is particularly important that the public understands the good work our office does.

As a part of the PPI Project, they performed a racial disparity study that compared 2021 to the pre-COVID years of 2017-2019. Thank you to the staff of the PPI Project for their hard work on this and the entire staff of our office for all of the work they do to keep our community safe.

The study found that, generally speaking, the office does an outstanding job of handling cases without regard to a defendant’s racial or ethnic background. They did find one area that is worth monitoring because there was a slight disparity in 2021 that didn’t exist before, but that could be due to the odd COVID-19 dynamics we saw in 2021, including the courthouse being closed for a majority of the year. We will run the same analysis on 2022 cases early in January of 2023 and then contemplate any possible actions at that point.”

To read the full report click here or on the image above.

To read more about the work that the Broward State Attorney’s Office is doing with Prosecutorial Performance Indicators, please click here.

Contact: Broward State Attorney’s Office
sao17@sao17.state.fl.us or 954-831-7910
https://browardsao.com