Violent crime, sexual deviancy and executive clemency in Florida, 1889-1918
Between 1889 and 1918, over 11,000 persons were convicted and sentenced to hard labour in Florida's convict lease camps located in piney woods and next to phosphate mines, and run by private contractors who leased state prisoners to ensure a steady and cheap labour force. Before the introduction of probation and parole in the twentieth century, there were four routes to freedom from Florida's prison system: expiration of sentence, death, escape and pardon. This study focuses on the pardon route. Florida's State Board of Pardons was a constitutional creation empowered to commute punishments, grant pardons and restore civil rights to convicted felons and misdemeanants. The Board was a necessary component of the state's criminal justice apparatus in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries due to the general inadequacy of the penal arrangements and the discretionary nature of the criminal justice system. While pardon was intended as an extraordinary device rather than a regular or ordinary release procedure, between 1889 and 1918, pardon in Florida was in effect a regular releasing device for a significant minority of offenders, and a substitute for parole. Pardon board records show how the culture and
Miller, Vivien Mary Louise
History
Violent crime, sexual deviancy and executive clemency in Florida, 1889-1918. Between 1889 and 1918, over 11,000 persons were convicted and sentenced to hard labour in Florida's convict lease camps located in piney woods and next to phosphate mines, and run by private contractors who leased state prisoners to ensure a steady and cheap labour force. Before the introduction of probation and parole in the twentieth century, there were four routes to freedom from Florida's prison system: expiration of sentence, death, escape and pardon. This study focuses on the pardon route. Florida's State Board of Pardons was a constitutional creation empowered to commute punishments, grant pardons and restore civil rights to convicted felons and misdemeanants. The Board was a necessary component of the state's criminal justice apparatus in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries due to the general inadequacy of the penal arrangements and the discretionary nature of the criminal justice system. While pardon was intended as an extraordinary device rather than a regular or ordinary release procedure, between 1889 and 1918, pardon in Florida was in effect a regular releasing device for a significant minority of offenders, and a substitute for parole. Pardon board records show how the culture and
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