In November 2020 the Tampa Bay Times published Targeted, an investigation into the Pasco County Sheriff's Office in Florida. The office had built a list of roughly 420 schoolchildren it considered likely future criminals. The children were not told. Their parents were not told. The school superintendent said he had not known the data was being used this way. The list was assembled from sixteen categories drawn from school records and state child-welfare data, and the categories are the part worth reading twice. A child could be flagged for grades of D or below, for three or more absences in a quarter, for discipline referrals — and for adverse childhood experiences, meaning abuse, witnessing violence, or having a parent incarcerated. A child who had been abused was thereby made more likely to appear on a police list of probable future offenders. The district's early-warning system covered more than thirty thousand middle and high school students, and the district paid the Sheriff's Office $2.3 million a year for thirty-two school resource officers. What happened next is the part worth recording, because it is the rarest outcome in this entire archive: someone was held to account. Four Pasco residents — Darlene Deegan, Dalanea Taylor, Tammy Heilman and Robert A. Jones III — sued in federal court in 2021, represented by the Institute for Justice. The pattern they described was not dramatic. Deputies arrived repeatedly, at all hours, and wrote citations for overgrown grass, missing house numbers, unvaccinated pets and window tint. The Sheriff's Office discontinued the programme in 2023. On 4 December 2024, with trial about to begin, it settled — and the settlement was not a denial. The Sheriff's Office admitted the programme violated the Fourth Amendment, because the checks exceeded the implied licence any visitor has to knock on a door; the First Amendment, because they directly and substantially interfered with the right of intimate association; and Fourteenth Amendment due process, because they interfered with the plaintiffs' liberty interests. It paid $105,000 in damages and is barred from running a comparable programme again. Whatever else is or is not happening to children, this happened, was documented in detail, required no capability anyone would dispute exists, and ended with a government admitting in writing that it had violated three amendments.
- 'Targeted', Tampa Bay Times investigation, 19 November 2020
- ~420 children on a Pasco County Sheriff's Office list of likely future criminals; neither children nor parents informed
- Sixteen flagging categories included D grades, three or more absences in a quarter, discipline referrals — and adverse childhood experiences: abuse, witnessing violence, parental incarceration
- School district early-warning data covered 30,000+ middle and high school students
- District paid the Sheriff's Office $2.3m a year for 32 school resource officers
- Four residents — Deegan, Taylor, Heilman and Jones — sued in federal court in 2021, represented by the Institute for Justice
- Documented harassment took the form of repeated visits at all hours and citations for overgrown grass, missing house numbers, unvaccinated pets and window tint
- The Sheriff's Office discontinued the programme in 2023
- Settled 4 December 2024 on the eve of trial. The Sheriff's Office ADMITTED violations of the Fourth Amendment (checks exceeded the implied licence to knock), the First Amendment (interference with intimate association) and Fourteenth Amendment due process (interference with liberty interests)
- $105,000 in damages; the office is barred from operating a comparable programme again
Open questions
- This documents one county's programme. It does not establish how widespread the practice is, and this concept makes no claim about other jurisdictions.
- It concerns lists, monitoring and police contact. It establishes nothing about any child being harmed, taken, or approached by anyone outside that programme.
- The Sheriff's Office admitted constitutional violations as part of a settlement. A settlement is not a trial verdict, and no court entered findings of fact against the office.
- The admissions concern the conduct of the checks. They are not a finding about what the list itself did to any individual child's life.
References
- Targeted — Tampa Bay Times (2020)
- Case closed: Pasco Sheriff admits the programme violated the Constitution — Institute for Justice
- Pasco settles its intelligence-led policing programme — Florida Phoenix
- Why isn't any of this in the news?
- There is no column for you
The Times is cited for its own investigation; the Institute for Justice was counsel to the plaintiffs and is cited for the settlement terms it obtained; Florida Phoenix is cited for its own reporting of the same settlement. The linked concepts are adjacent arguments and neither corroborates this one.
Not independently verified
This concept reports a published investigation into one county's programme. It makes no claim about any other jurisdiction, and none about harm to any individual child.
Topics: Proposed solutions · Harassment · Surveillance & memory access · Law enforcement & government