Miami-Dade Sees Drop In Homicides, Other Violent Crimes

MIAMI, FL — Homicide, robbery, aggravated assault and other violent crimes were down more than 7 percent in Miami-Dade County over the past year, while certain non-violent offenses were down more than 6 percent in 2018, according to data compiled by the Miami-Dade Police Department.

"The Miami-Dade Police Department is committed to partnering with our community and stakeholders, as part of our shared responsibility to reduce crime in Miami-Dade County, while using recognized best practices, community policing initiatives, and leveraging innovative law enforcement technologies to improve our effectiveness and efficiency," explained Detective Alvaro Zabaleta of the Miami-Dade Police Department in releasing the data on Tuesday.

Subscribe to Miami Patch's free email news alerts and newsletters

The most populous of Florida's 67 counties, Miami-Dade reported an overall drop of 6.24 percent in the categories of crime that make up Part I offenses under the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program.

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez along with Miami Police Chief Jorge Colina and City Manager Emilio Gonzalez are also scheduled to make a "historic crime rate announcement" on Wednesday afternoon. Miami is the largest city within Miami-Dade County.

Zabaleta cautioned that the data is still considered preliminary. He said the data will be submitted to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement as part of Florida's Uniform Crime Reports once finalized.

"The UCR Program collects data about Part I offenses in order to measure the level and scope of crime occurring throughout the nation," according to FBI officials. "The program’s founders chose these offenses because they are serious crimes, they occur with regularity in all areas of the country, and they are likely to be reported to police."

Part I categories include murder and nonnegligent homicide; rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft, larceny-theft and arson in FBI parlance though the Miami-Dade data does not appear to include the category of arson. There were also differences in some of the category names.

Homicide offenses dropped 16 percent in Miami-Dade as did forcible sex offenses though certain crimes in the latter category were up, or about the same as the previous year. This includes, fondling, which was up about 13 percent and sodomy, which was unchanged from 2017 figures.

The category of robbery was down about 14 percent while aggravated assaults were down slightly more than 6 percent.

Burglary was down about 24 percent overall, but certain crimes within that category have increased.

For example, purse snatching is up by 37.5 percent. Shoplifting is up more than 10 percent and theft from a coin machine nearly tripled from four to 11 cases in 2018.

Finally, the category of larceny dropped by more than 4 percent, according to the Miami-Dade statistics.

Image via Shutterstock