and only a few of my friends or co-workers have lived in a gated community. I am far from being rich.
While the crime rate in Florida is high it is at a 40 year low.
"We are at a 40-year low in our crime rate in our state."
Rick Scott on Friday, April 13th, 2012 in comments to Reuters
***snip***
A reader (and Palm Beach Post reporter) on Twitter reported that Scott again said crime rates were at 40-year lows during a forum in West Palm Beach; she asked us to check it out. So we decided to investigate.
Our first stop was with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Crime statistics on the website only go back 11 years, so we contacted the department directly. It provided us with crime statistics from 2010 back to 1971, for a total of 40 years.
The department uses the number of crimes and the population of Florida to calculate crime rates, so different years can be compared. The crime rate shows how many crimes occurred per 100,000 people.
In 1971, the crime rate was 5,668. The rate crept up through the 1970s, peaking in the late 1980s at 8,908. The rate then slowly dropped through the 1990s. In 2000, it dropped below the 1971 mark and continued downward. In 2010, the crime rate reached a new low of 4,105. (See the data for yourself.)
http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2012/apr/17/rick-scott/rick-scott-said-florida-crime-rates-are-40-year-lo/
It is somewhat interesting to note that Florida passed "shall issue" concealed carry in 1987 just as the crime rate peaked. Obviously it's foolish to claim that the crime rate dropped because civilians started legally carrying firearms in public as there are far too many factors in the crime equation. However it is obvious that allowing CCW did not cause the crime rate to skyrocket.
I originally grew up in Ohio and after my time in the service I returned there. One of the wisest decisions I ever made was to leave the snow belt in northeast Ohio and move to the sunshine state. I figured that if many people in Ohio dreamed of retiring and moving to Florida it might be a good idea to go there when I was still young.
= new reply since forum marked as read
