For two years, Florida Juvenile Justice department ducked records request

The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice has failed to fulfill a Florida Phoenix records request from October 2024, nearly two years on, despite acknowledging it within 12 minutes of receipt. A nearly identical 2024 request was completed in three months and led to reporting that incarcerated children could watch pornography on state laptops and that a new school program ran $10 million over budget.

A February 2025 request and a March 2026 request for a statutorily mandated annual financial report also remain unanswered, and the department has given no reason for the delay or timeline for completion. Follow-ups to DJJ's communications director yielded only that the request was 'still in process,' with no further updates.

Two successive DJJ secretaries have told the Legislature that the pornography access problem was fixed, calling it 'growing pains' addressed with 'immediate' intervention, but the department has not produced records verifying those claims. The First Amendment Foundation's executive director says nonresponse to public records requests has become common practice, calling it corrosive to democratic accountability.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.