BenchRecon Data · Florida sentencing
Palm Beach County: sentencing outcomes by charge
273,905 charge dispositions in Palm Beach County, Florida, from public FDLE CJDT Clerk-of-Court data, 30.4% 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 Palm Beach 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 | Confinement distribution (when incarcerated) | Adj. withheld | Diversion |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Driver Licenses | 104,187 | 7% | median 11 d · mean 46 d · mode 10 d · mid-50% 6 d–39 d | 14.9% | 57.3% |
| State Uniform Traffic Control | 25,253 | 29.6% | median 32 d · mean 171 d · mode 1 d · mid-50% 5 d–120 d | 17.9% | 20% |
| Drug Abuse Prevention and Control | 24,363 | 63.1% | median 47 d · mean 318 d · mode 2 d · mid-50% 4 d–335 d | 11.8% | 15.6% |
| Theft, Robbery, and Related Crimes | 21,542 | 56.5% | median 90 d · mean 1.0 yr · mode 364 d · mid-50% 24 d–364 d | 10.5% | 21.9% |
| Assault; Battery; Culpable Negligence | 18,373 | 49.9% | median 63 d · mean 265 d · mode 2 d · mid-50% 14 d–244 d | 13.2% | 32.5% |
| Burglary and Trespass | 17,516 | 49.1% | median 64 d · mean 1.2 yr · mode 364 d · mid-50% 15 d–1.0 yr | 12.2% | 10.5% |
| Motor Vehicle Licenses | 16,978 | 4.1% | median 10 d · mean 23 d · mode 10 d · mid-50% 5 d–32 d | 5.1% | 77.3% |
| Obstructing Justice | 10,753 | 45.2% | median 42 d · mean 121 d · mode 2 d · mid-50% 10 d–140 d | 11% | 25.2% |
| Weapons and Firearms | 4,936 | 72.8% | median 364 d · mean 2.1 yr · mode 3.0 yr · mid-50% 32 d–3.0 yr | 11% | 16% |
| Arson and Criminal Mischief | 3,945 | 50.8% | median 60 d · mean 181 d · mode 60 d · mid-50% 23 d–181 d | 10.2% | 24.6% |
| Abuse of Children | 3,437 | 71.6% | median 5.0 yr · mean 6.9 yr · mode 5.0 yr · mid-50% 1.3 yr–8.0 yr | 4.1% | 12.4% |
| Fraudulent Practices | 2,391 | 73.9% | median 180 d · mean 1.2 yr · mode 1 d · mid-50% 14 d–1.5 yr | 16.8% | 16.5% |
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.
- Confinement distribution: the median, mean, mode, and middle-50% range (25th–75th percentile) of the maximum confinement term, in days, among charges that resulted in a jail or prison sentence. The spread is shown because a single median is easily skewed; the distribution is what makes a comparable defensible. 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 Palm Beach 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.