BenchRecon Data · Florida sentencing
Polk County: sentencing outcomes by charge
120,100 charge dispositions in Polk County, Florida, from public FDLE CJDT Clerk-of-Court data — 36.7% drew a recorded jail or prison sentence. The table below breaks the county's highest-volume charge categories into incarceration rate, median confinement, adjudication-withheld rate, and diversion rate.
“Incarceration” means a sentence to county jail or state prison; the rate is the share of charges with a recorded jail or prison sentence (a lower bound, since the source confinement field is blank on 56% of charges statewide). Dispositions span 1951-12-22 to 2026-06-20; not time-normalized.
Aggregate analysis, data as of 2026-06-21. Reproducible from public records. No individual is identified; the source data has no judge identifier, so no claim is made about any individual judge.
Sentencing outcomes by charge category
The highest-volume charge categories in Polk County. “Median confinement (when incarcerated)” is the typical maximum term among only the charges in that category that resulted in custody — so where the incarceration rate is low, that median describes a small subset of the category's charges, not a typical outcome for the category as a whole. It reads “—” where fewer than 10 charges in that category were incarcerated, or where the category's incarceration rate is too low for the median to be representative.
| Charge category | Charges | Incarceration | Median confinement (when incarcerated) | Adj. withheld | Diversion |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drug Abuse Prevention and Control | 25,230 | 45.8% | 120 d | 13.4% | 6.3% |
| Driver Licenses | 24,213 | 17.4% | 30 d | 34.4% | 12.7% |
| Theft, Robbery, and Related Crimes | 10,737 | 49.8% | 180 d | 19% | 10.1% |
| Assault; Battery; Culpable Negligence | 8,892 | 41.8% | 180 d | 19.8% | 8% |
| Obstructing Justice | 8,761 | 45.4% | 60 d | 14.5% | 3.1% |
| Burglary and Trespass | 8,384 | 56.5% | 60 d | 12.2% | 2.2% |
| State Uniform Traffic Control | 7,222 | 29.4% | 90 d | 16.4% | 3.7% |
| Motor Vehicle Licenses | 3,859 | 7.2% | 30 d | 30.6% | 24.2% |
| Financial Responsibility | 3,600 | 4.6% | 30 d | 23.5% | 43% |
| Weapons and Firearms | 2,069 | 55.3% | 1.3 yr | 20.8% | 1.5% |
| Arson and Criminal Mischief | 1,897 | 33.3% | 90 d | 18.8% | 6% |
| Abuse of Children | 1,499 | 46.5% | 8.0 yr | 9.7% | 1.5% |
Methodology & limitations
- Source: public Florida FDLE Criminal Justice Data Transparency (CJDT) Clerk-of-Court case data, grouped by county and FDLE statute-chapter grouping. Snapshot: 2026-06-21. Every figure is reproducible from a published script against the source data.
- “Incarceration” defined: a charge counts as incarceration only when its sentence is a sentence to county jail or state prison. The rate is the share of charges with a recorded jail or prison sentence — a lower bound, because the source confinement field is blank on 56% of charges statewide and counties populate it inconsistently. Cross-county comparison is therefore confounded by reporting completeness.
- Median confinement: median maximum confinement term, in days, among charges that resulted in a jail or prison sentence; reported only where at least 10 such charges exist. Charge categories with fewer than 10 charges overall are omitted.
- No judge dimension: the source data contains no judge identifier. Nothing here describes how any individual judge sentences.
- What the data does NOT show: these figures describe recorded dispositions and do not control for criminal history, offense severity within a chapter, plea posture, or case facts. A category rate is a baseline, not a prediction for any specific case. This page reports aggregates only and identifies no individual.
Comparables for a specific Polk County charge
BenchRecon's Sentencing Comparables return the outcome distribution for a specific charge in a specific Florida county, with every figure cited to the underlying public record.