Bureaucratic Politics: The Dynamics of Florida’s Prearrest Delinquency Citation Program

• In Event: Policymaking Across the American States

Abstract

Prior research has examined the relationship between political affiliation, race/ethnicity, and gender of top-level law enforcement officials on youth outcomes in the state of Florida’s juvenile justice system (i.e., Jackson, Neshkova, and Meier 2023; Jackson, Neshkova, and Newman 2024). This study specifically investigates the discretion of street-level bureaucrats. It tests the impact of elected officials’ politics, race/ethnicity, gender, and tenure on Florida’s prearrest delinquency citation program at the local level following the George Floyd incident in Minneapolis, MN, and the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020.

Representative bureaucracy (Headley and Wright 2020; Hong 2017; Meier 1993; Mosher 1968), political control of the bureaucracy (Chaney and Saltzstein 1998; Frederickson, Smith, Larimer, and Licari 2016; Meier and O’Toole 2006), and organizational socialization (Carroll, Wright, and Meier 2019; Herbert 1974; Wilkins and Williams 2008) serve as the theoretical framework. The study hypothesizes that the social and political identities of sheriffs and state attorneys influence the distribution of youth receiving alternatives to arrest among social groups. Data are collected from Florida’s 67 counties between 2020 and 2025. Robust regression models are used to analyze how social identity, partisanship, and tenure of the highest-ranking law enforcement officials affect street-level outcomes. Preliminary findings suggest that sheriffs’ and state attorneys’ intersectional identities of race and gender have a more significant and positive influence on discretionary decisions than their political affiliation and length of tenure.

Attendees will gain a better understanding of the dynamics of Florida's Prearrest Delinquency Citation Program as it relates to the juvenile justice system. In addition, attendees will recognize the impact that politics, race/ethnicity, gender, and the tenure of top-level law enforcement officials have on street-level bureaucratic discretion. Lastly, they will also gain a clear understanding of the explanatory power of representative bureaucracy, political control of the bureaucracy, and organizational socialization.

Author

• William T. Jackson, Florida State University
  Presenting Author