Blog Post #10

Seminole County: Race, Crime, and Punishment in Florida

            Abstract: There is very little to no scholarship on crime and punishment as it pertains to race in the state of Florida. In Seminole county, men were being arrested and incarcerated in far greater numbers than women, however, non-white men were being arrested and incarcerated in even greater numbers than white men – 570 non-white men and 64 non-white women. In terms of white individuals arrested and incarcerated, 309 were white males and 18 were white females. This data based on sex of these individuals shows in part that they were largely multi-racial men that were being arrested. In Seminole county, non-white people were largely arrested for alcohol related crimes, assault, and finally, larceny. Depending on the year many of these crimes were committed, for example, when looking at alcohol related crimes, they were likely the highest during the Prohibition years due to the fact that alcohol was outlawed.


The principal data source that I will be using for my research is the Seminole County Jail Books, which have already been transcribed by my professor and a colleague of his. These records include hair color, eye color, skin color, crime committed, height, weight, and term of sentence. In comparison, for my research for my thesis, The Sanford Municipal Police and Court Dockets, show an even wider range of data. These records look at the location where the individual being arrested and tried in the court of law had lived and where they worked in addition to similar information presented in the Seminole county records. The visualization platform that I will be using is Tableau and I will be creating several charts and graphs that will ultimately make up the completed final project for the class. I have been going through the Excel spread sheet and standardizing it further. I have also explored the different types of graphs, charts, and mapping tools that Tableau has to offer in the public version. My goal for the final for this course is to use a variety of different visualizations to create an interesting collection of data. My professor also emailed me copies of the original documents so that I can add them to the spread sheet. I have also gone into Tableau and practiced with the program a bit. I believe it will be a very interesting and useful tool for this project and future ones as well. Tableau will also be a useful tool in visualizing the data from my thesis research.

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