The latest 2018 crime statistics released by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) show that the violent crime rate, the property crime rate, and the overall crime rate in Leon County are all down by over 7% when compared to 2017.
However, the FDLE data also shows that Leon County, for the fifth consecutive year, has the highest crime rate in Florida.
The Leon County crime rate was also down in 2017.
With crime trending down, why is Leon County still ranked number one?
The answer is that crime has been falling faster throughout the state than in Leon County over the last 15-20 years.
Let’s look at the violent crime rate.
In 2018 there 612 violent crime incidents per 100,000 people in Leon County. This is the lowest rate reported by FDLE in Leon County over the last 18 years. The rate has fallen approximately 25% since 2000-2010. Source
However, during this same period, the Florida violent crime rate has decreased approximately 43%. Source.
This trend is even more pronounced with property crimes, which is a larger driver of the overall crime rate.
In Leon County the property crime rate has declined approximately 16% when comparing the 2018 rate to the average rate from 2000-2010.
However, the 2018 property crime rate in Florida has declined approximately 43% when compared to the average statewide rate from 2000-2010. Source.
The numbers show that Leon County has had the number one crime rate in Florida – not because crime is increasing – but because crime is not falling as fast as the crime rates in other locations throughout Florida.
Our next report will look at the one exception to this decreasing trend – Tallahassee’s murder rate. Ironically, the murder rate has very little impact on the over all crime rate ranking, but it is a public relations nightmare.
With Crime Trending Down, Why is Leon County Still Ranked Number One? added by Steve Stewart on
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How about it, city leaders? What priority is most important for Tallahassee’s future?
Answer. The election of conservatives.
Over the past few years I’ve said this many times, but the mayor and city commissioners should make it a top priority (if not THE top priority) to attract some companies and-or manufacturing to the SOUTH side of Tallahassee to hire and train workers there.
The local leaders could perhaps offer (1) free land to build, (2) gigantic utility discounts for years, and (3) every other tax incentive they can possibly think of to get some companies to build and HIRE in south Tallahassee. The bottom line is that crime usually increases where people lack opportunity and hope – gangs flourish, families fall apart, poverty is rampant, etc. If a company that manufactures items like washing machines, circuit boards, electrical parts for auto or other machines etc. could hire and train people for entry-level jobs that pay above minimum wage and offer benefits, that’s at least a start. The added incentive that you can get more on-job training to become a supervisor or manager and get higher pay could also be there. People with a real job and making some decent money aren’t usually attracted to a gangsta-ghetto lifestyle of crime and drugs.
Perhaps I’m vastly oversimplifying, but Tallahassee could at least try this approach, if they aren’t already. It may work, it may not – people on the southside would have to step up and take advantage of the opportunity handed to them. You can’t make people have ambition, they have to do that on their own. But at least they’d have the opportunity on their doorstep. Tallahassee needs southside-located companies that will hire several hundred workers or more and offer a decent wage after basic on-job training. If we could get maybe 2 or 3 such companies to locate and hire on the southside, maybe a good chunk of the crime rate would decrease over time. Again, maybe this is wishful reasoning on my part – but it will work better than doing nothing.
How about it, city leaders? What priority is most important for Tallahassee’s future?
Why are people voting them in if they are bad for Leon county? I’m not from here. I’ve never felt like this is my home. Even though I’ve been here since 1986. Back when I moved here it was a beautiful city to live in. But I don’t like the city anymore. I bought a home in 2098. Paid a lot of money for it; only months later the property lost value and we have been underwater since.
Want to see a city with similar problems? Just for look for any Democratic/Socialist strongholds and there you go.
Tallahassee has a problem of shameless self-promoters who are so successful in promoting themselves who have no real interest in humanity being successful at duping voters, editors, publishers, Etc.
Self-promoters unfortunately are able to get elected and elected and elected and elected over and over and over again. It’s time to vote out Proctor, it’s time to vote out McNeil, it’s time to vote out the state attorney, it’s time to call for a nationwide search for a city and county managers, and it’s time to shut the Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce yearly out-of-town junkets down. Start here.
Of course there is a lot more work to do… a lot… But oh, this would go a long way to a healthy start.
Correct. A newcomer to town doesn’t even have to leave the airport before seeing a larger-than-life mural of a “Usual Suspect” on the fringe of the FBI investigation promoting himself!