Crime drops almost 8 percent 1st half of ’09
ORLANDO (AP) – The number of crimes committed in Florida dropped 7.9 percent in the first half of 2009 after increasing during the same period in each of the past two years, the state reported Wednesday.
Only raw numbers were released for the six-month span. Crime rate statistics that figure in population, also down this year in Florida, are issued only on an annual basis.
Crimes had gone up 1.6 percent in the first half of last year and 3.9 percent in the same period of 2007.
Gov. Charlie Crist and Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Gerald Bailey announced the figures at FDLE’s Orlando regional center.
Crist credited Florida’s law enforcement officers and a law he sponsored while a state senator that requires inmates to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences. He’s also been boasting about the 85 percent law in his campaign for the U.S. Senate.
“I’m not the smartest guy in the world, but I’m smart enough to figure out that if you let bad people out over and over again across the state, pretty soon you get to live in a state that is No. 1 in violent crime in America,” Crist said. “These numbers show this is reversing.”
The latest annual figures released in April showed Florida’s crime rate increased by a tiny 0.1 percent in 2008. That followed a 1.4 percent increase in 2007, Crist’s first year as governor, breaking a string of 15 straight years of declines.