When a white construction worker fired four shots into an occupied Gainesville hotel in 2022, he was given three days in jail. But many Black defendants with similar cases found themselves with harsher sentences.
In a sample The Alligator collected of 571 gun-related criminal cases from 2019 to 2023, more than 441 defendants identified as Black. About 46% of these defendants were found guilty.
In contrast, 130 sampled cases included white defendants, with only 39% receiving guilty sentences. All cases ranged in severity, with some convicted on homicide charges and others for armed robberies.
About 22% of Gainesville’s population identifies as Black or African American, and they often struggle the most with economic and educational disparities, The Alligator previously reported.
A 2018 study by UF’s Bureau of Economic and Business Research noted that African Americans are almost four times more likely to be arrested in Alachua County than white people. The study also revealed that African Americans in Alachua County are almost nine times more likely to be an inmate than their white counterparts.
Participants in the study acknowledged that they faced inequality “on a daily basis.”
Bias in the judicial system
Incarceration inequality isn’t just a Gainesville problem. It’s prevalent at a national level, UF criminology professor and PhD student Kyle Hewit said. Hewit, who previously worked in a prison, researches wrongful convictions within the judicial system.
Working in a prison introduced Hewit to problems within the judicial system, such as inmate abuse, racism and harsh punishments.
These problems are especially apparent for Black inmates. Stereotypes surrounding Black Americans have persisted for decades, Hewit said, and have seeped into the court and legal system with implicit biases. In the judicial system, racist rhetoric such as the belief that Black men are dangerous is common, he said.
Those implicit biases often appear in jury trials and lead to Black defendants being found guilty at higher rates, Hewit said.
“The more white people on the jury, the more likely they are to convict a Black person,” Hewit said. “Nothing can explain that except the fact that they’re Black.”
In The Alligator’s sample of gun violence cases, several Black defendants had received public counsel — many citing that they could not afford an attorney, posing another concern for economic disparities in Gainesville’s population.
Gun violence epidemic
In February 2023, the Gainesville City Commission declared the city was in a gun violence crisis, though gun violence in Gainesville appears to be on a steady decline, according to city officials.
Similarly, when it comes to incarceration, some argue that Black defendants aren’t being targeted. The sentencing and overall judicial process in Gainesville isn’t skewed and can be circumstantial, Gainesville State Attorney Brian Kramer said.
Having a different set of punishments for another group is wrong, and it would be illegal for any agency to make decisions based on a defendant’s race, he added.
“To say, ‘I'm going to do this to you because you fall into a particular class of individuals,’ that's a violation of somebody's due process rights,” Kramer said.
Kramer said there’s no way to properly measure why some defendants receive harsher sentences than others.
Seeing young people incarcerated for gun-related crimes is heartbreaking, Public Defender of the Eighth Judicial Circuit Stacy Scott said.
Scott, whose district encompasses Gainesville, has served as the public defender since 2010. Regarding The Alligator's data, she noted there was a disparity in the number of Black versus white defendants but could not comment on why that disparity exists.
Still, Scott said there is an issue in Gainesville’s community with gun violence that has devastated the lives of defendants, victims and their families.
“It is soul-wrenching when you look into the eyes of a 15-year-old and have to tell them that they are being charged as an adult,” Scott wrote in an email statement. “And are looking at spending the rest of their life in prison because of one terrible decision.”
Resources, moving forward
In his 2024 State of the City address, Gainesville Mayor Harvey Ward said the city allocated over $53 million to gun violence prevention programs. Ward also announced the creation of a new city position to improve public safety against gun violence, though it is unclear if someone has yet been hired.
This summer, Gainesville had zero gun-related homicides, according to Ward. Ward said he hopes all of Gainesville’s law entities, such as the State Attorney’s Office, can work together to decrease gun violence.
“If somebody has a bad day, young person, old person, white, Black, regardless of the neighborhood,” Ward said. “If they're having a bad day and they have access to a firearm and they use it, there's an excellent chance that that won't be the end of that story.”
Programs like Gainesville’s Youth Steering Committee have been placed to encourage discussion and preventative measures surrounding gun violence. According to the organization, youth gun violence stems from mental health issues, easy access to guns and peer pressure.
Gainesville also launched IMPACT GNV as an initiative to prevent gun violence and offer community resources. Part of the plan includes:
- Improving access to mental health services, social support and the arts
- Prioritizing public health and safety efforts in areas most impacted by gun violence
- Analyzing gun violence data
In an Aug. 8 Alachua County Commission meeting, Commissioner Anna Prizzia noted a need to understand the root causes of gun violence and how it disproportionately affects Gainesville’s Black communities.
“When you don't give people education, when you don't give them affordable housing, when they have to figure out how to provide for their families,” Prizzia said. “You stick people in this structural poverty and structural inability to achieve goals that they want to achieve because we're not providing that education.”
Contact Vivienne Serret at vserret@alligator.org. Follow her on X @vivienneserret.
Vivienne Serret is a UF journalism and criminology senior, serving as the Fall 2024 race and equity reporter for The Alligator's Enterprise desk. She previously worked as a columnist and previously reported for The Alligator's university desk as the student government reporter. She loves karaoke and lifting at the gym.
