By Vanessa Blum
The Sun-Sentinel
SOUTH FLORIDA — Federal prosecutors in South Florida are filing fewer criminal charges than five years ago, a trend that reflects changing law enforcement priorities after the 9-11 terrorist attacks, a new report concludes.
At the current rate, the number of prosecutions in 2007 will be down roughly 12 percent from 2002, according to data analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research organization affiliated with Syracuse University.
Federal prosecutors in the Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit and Boston areas have seen even larger decreases in criminal filings over that period.
In this region, covering Broward, Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and six other counties, the number of drug cases has fallen dramatically, sliding from 1,461 in 2002 to 883 in 2006, according to the Syracuse group. As of April 2007, the seventh month of the fiscal year, prosecutors had filed roughly 580 drug-related cases, on track to surpass the 2006 figure but well below 2001 prosecutions.
U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta said some resources that had been focused on drug enforcement shifted to counter-terrorism after 9-11, resulting in fewer drug prosecutions. For instance, dogs that used to sniff for drugs coming into the airport now look for explosives.
He said South Florida prosecutors continue to emphasize major prosecutions against international drug-trafficking cartels. “When resources become limited, you have to prioritize,” Acosta said, adding that the office is on its way to a record year for prosecutions targeting gang crime, illegal guns and health care fraud.
The number of immigration cases is also rising, from about 300 in 2002 to 500 expected in 2007.
Overall, the U.S. Attorney’s office in South Florida is expected to bring 10 percent more cases in 2007 than 2006, but still fewer than in 2002, the report shows.
Copyright 2007 Sun-Sentinel