Marion County — A Uniform Crime Report released by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement Tuesday shows that crime is up by four percent in Marion County.
According to FDLE, the number of violent, serious crimes in Marion, have increased.
These crimes include robberies, rapes, aggravated assaults, larcenies, and motor vehicle thefts.
Murder dropped by one — from 18 in 2016 to 17 for 2017.
The Annual UCR calculates crime rate – a calculation based on population; the total number of index crimes reported per 100,000 people, and crime volume – the total number of index crimes known to law enforcement.
In 2014, statistics showed that Marion County was listed as number 30 out of 67 counties for most dangerous. Ocala was number 17 in the state of Florida for most violent cities. Orlando comes in as number two and Miami Beach is number one.
After discussing these crime statistics with FDLE, it was determined that the crime increase was only half true due to the fact that the four percent only pertained to the portion of Marion County patrolled by the Sheriff’s Department. According to FDLE, the statistics do not include the crimes that had taken place within the inner city. Moreover, the percentage did not include the vast majority of crimes that occurred in Marion County in 2016, such as drug offenses, prostitution, DUI arrests, etc. Furthermore, Ocala Post was told by FDLE that the crime rate statistics are only as good as the information reported to them by the local law enforcement agency.
FDLE says that the overall crime rate in Florida has decreased by six percent.
What do you think about the increase in crime rate?