By Rob Lorei
For the past year a team of reporters at the Sarasota Herald Tribune has been investigating sentencing here in Florida. The team searched tens of millions of records from 2004 through 2015.The investigation revealed that blacks are more likely to be found guilty than whites in Florida; they are more likely to spend time behind bars; their sentences are usually longer; and they are not given as many opportunities to avoid incarceration through pretrial diversion.The investigation shows that Republican judges are more likely to deliver harsher punishment toward black defendants than Democratic judges. And white judges are more likely to be harder on black defendants than are black judges. Our guest on Radioactivity Wednesday was one of the investigative team members, Sarasota Herald Tribune reporter Josh Salman.
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