Jacksonville — While violent crime is down, overall, in Florida, Jacksonville's violent crime is up in 2017 compared to 2016. Gov. Rick Scott highlighted the report Tuesday morning at the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office headquarters. "I'm proud to announce that crime in our state is at a 47 year low," Scott said. But while murder, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and larceny are down statewide, rape is up considerably according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's Uniform Crime Report. Domestic violence also went up slightly, but those were the only violent crime indexes that increased in Florida.
Overall, the state crime rate is down 6%, and there were almost 29,000 fewer crimes year-over-year. However, that is not the case in Jacksonville. Jacksonville saw 6 more murders in 2017 than 2016, 41 more rapes and upticks in other crimes.
Due to a large increase in population, though, and a large decrease in crimes like car theft, larceny, robbery and burglary, Jacksonville's crime rate went down. The crime rate is calculated based on the number of crimes committed per 100,000 people who live in Duval county. Therefore, even if the number of crimes goes up the crime rate can go down if the population also increases.
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