Florida crime rate compared with equal sized cities - WHAT GIVES?? (Orlando: calculation, dangerous)

[WANative]

Ive lived in Boca for the past year (moved here from Seattle) and have been all over the S Florida area (personally and professionally) and have yet to see or be a victim of crime.

[StreetLegal]

Originally Posted by leetchy2

Crime rate statistics are over-stated in cities where there's a large tourist population relative to the size of the permanent residents.

Crime rates should be computed by dividing total # of crimes by the total number of persons in the city. The FBI only uses the permanent population to represent the total number of persons in the city, and they leave out the tourist population.

If the crime rate was computed correctly, by dividing the total # of crimes by the permanent + tourist population, then the crime statistics would be much lower in many of Florida's tourist cities.

Same thing happens in Myrtle Beach. The area only has about 40,000 residents, but it attracts over 100,000 tourists on a given day. As a result the crime rate is higher than reality because they're dividing total crimes by 40,000 instead of by 140,000, and the consequence is it becomes ranked as more dangerous than Newark NJ or Baltimore MD which is nonsense.

I think this is a mistake to think crime rates are over-stated in tourist oriented cities. Crime analysts that have studied the issue note there are plenty of tourist cities with average or below average crime rates.

Neighborhood Scout (N.S.) has studied the issue and notes:
"It appears that just being a tourist locale is not enough to drive tourist hot spots onto the list of most dangerous cities, but rather the character of the communities themselves seem to be more at root of the problem: unemployment, low educational attainment, and other social issues with which the communities struggle, regardless of their attraction to tourists."

Daytona Beach, Ft. Pierce, Lake Worth and Orlando all appear on N.S.'s list of top 100 most dangerous/high crime cities in the U.S.A. Yet, Palm Beach, West Palm Beach and Sarasota do not.

Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed

Or you can compare Orlando (pop. about 240,000) to Anaheim (pop. about 350,000). Both huge tourist draws (Disney, theme parks, etc.). Yet, Anaheim has a violent crime rate below the national average while Orlando's violent crime rate is above the national average.

Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed

[aridon]

Yeah the tourist thing doesn't make sense to me.

Fact is the crime here has nothing to do with tourists either on the receiving end or the commission. Nearly all of the crime is committed by locals, in the local community and done in a manner without any regard to snow birds, tourists or anything transient.

SE FL has some really dense, heavy crime areas which skew the statistics. This crap has been slowly migrating North over the last few decades and has started to infest certain areas of the county. If you stay away from these areas and those immediately surrounding crime isn't much of an issue.

That said, SE FL does have a major crime problem.

[ognend]

OP: Florida is a transient state, much more than any other state in the Union. With this transiency and the nice climate you get quite a few bad apples moving in. I can speak of Palm Beach county mostly - a place like West Palm is spread out and there are pockets where I would not go - most locals can point them out to you and you really would not have any business being there to begin with (what would you do in Riviera Beach or on Tamarind Avenue anyways?). You would liken these mostly to places from Chicago or Detroit or any large city where they have "rough parts of town" although the rough places in West Palm, for example, are nothing compared what you would find in the really rough places in Chicago or Detroit or L.A. Palm Beach county is very spread out and large. You can live in places like Wellington, Jupiter, Juno beach, Boca, so on and so on - crime there will be much lower and it will be mostly people just like anywhere else - retirees, professionals, contractors and business owners etc. This has been my experience - we lived there for 5+ years until we moved away temporarily a few years back (still own a home here and planning on returning).

Finally, the population density in these bad neighborhoods may be skewing the statistics against the nice neighborhoods. The numbers are crunched for the whole area and a few densely populated bad spots can make everything else look bad.

[StreetSmarts]

Its the most transient state in the US, criminals and weirdos are drawn to it, for some reason, more than anywhere else. It's like this, and this is an example, but here it goes... I have a wife and two kids, safety and schools are upmost importance, being in an area with high morals and standards and etc... am I going to go to Southeast FL for that? No. Now, say I'm from NYC, I'm single, tired of the cold, rude and crude but that ok. I want to party, date lots of materialistic women and act like I'm a bad ass b/c here in NYC, I'm a nobody. Where am I going to go? Exactly.

Some people are drawn to certain areas for certain reasons and to be around many, many others just like them. The problem is, SE FL and really FL in general, attracts some of the ones you would rather not be around. I wouldn't live in South FL for free. And Central FL isn't much better anymore.

[ognend]

Originally Posted by StreetSmarts

Its the most transient state in the US, criminals and weirdos are drawn to it, for some reason, more than anywhere else. It's like this, and this is an example, but here it goes... I have a wife and two kids, safety and schools are upmost importance, being in an area with high morals and standards and etc... am I going to go to Southeast FL for that? No. Now, say I'm from NYC, I'm single, tired of the cold, rude and crude but that ok. I want to party, date lots of materialistic women and act like I'm a bad ass b/c here in NYC, I'm a nobody. Where am I going to go? Exactly.

Wow. So much crap in one paragraph, where does one start?

You know, many people move to Florida for the weather and the ocean... Nothing to do with being a "bad ass"...

Originally Posted by StreetSmarts

Some people are drawn to certain areas for certain reasons and to be around many, many others just like them. The problem is, SE FL and really FL in general, attracts some of the ones you would rather not be around. I wouldn't live in South FL for free. And Central FL isn't much better anymore.

How many states have you lived in? How many cities?

In some states there is a lot of poverty - try New Mexico for example - even towns of 3-10,000 people are drowning in crime 2-3x the national average. Drugs are everywhere in small town Tennessee or North Carolina or Virginia, places where you would think you could leave your door unlocked at night.

We moved to small town Texas a few years ago (still have a home in SoFL - planning on moving back some time). The crime rate was 200 (national avg 300). Guess what? Our car got broken into and not long after someone stole a package from in front of our gate, all in the small sleepy, law abiding, conservative Texas town. First time we have EVER been victims of crime after living in multiple countries and multiple states in USA.

Anyways, Florida is not for everyone. Yes, Tamarind Ave in West Palm will NEVER be small-town New Hempshire but it will NEVER be rough-town Detroit either. You just have to know which part of town to live in, like everywhere else. Plenty of nice and quiet places in South Florida to choose from. Don't like it? Leave or work on making it better for everyone involved.

[StreetSmarts]

Ok, the last few sentances were just a rant lol. forgive me. but the transient and weirdos being attracted to se fla is absolutely true. a ton of people feel this way. not just me. good luck on your move back to se fla though.

[ognend]

Originally Posted by StreetSmarts

Ok, the last few sentances were just a rant lol. forgive me. but the transient and weirdos being attracted to se fla is absolutely true. a ton of people feel this way. not just me. good luck on your move back to se fla though.

No, I get it

[StreetSmarts]

Ehh, it is what it is. I dont see it changing anytime soon. Most people left a long time ago, but a lot of people are attracted to the beaches and the always warm weather. I think all the fraud (S FL is #1 in mortgage fraud, medical and insurance fraud, insurance fraud, tax fraud, etc) is due to who the area attracts. Its a very, very transient area.

[leetchy2]

Originally Posted by StreetLegal

I think this is a mistake to think crime rates are over-stated in tourist oriented cities. Crime analysts that have studied the issue note there are plenty of tourist cities with average or below average crime rates.

Or you can compare Orlando (pop. about 240,000) to Anaheim (pop. about 350,000). Both huge tourist draws (Disney, theme parks, etc.). Yet, Anaheim has a violent crime rate below the national average while Orlando's violent crime rate is above the national average.

Orlando attracts 60 million tourists a year, Anaheim receives about 20 million, that's the difference. The amount of bias will depend on the ratio of steady population to tourist population. So not all tourist destinations will exhibit the same amount of bias. In particular, if there are a large number of tourists relative to the size of the permanent population then the crime rates will clearly not be representative. Myrtle Beach (pop. ~ 30-40,000) is tiny compared to the tourist population (15 million), so their crime stats will be biased more than Anaheim who has 10x the population base but only 1.3x the number of tourists. Niagra Falls (44th most "dangerous" city) also falls victim for the same reason as Myrtle with 12 million tourists and only 50,000 population.

You provide a quote from Neighborhod Scout, but here is an important note you missed on the page where they discuss the methodology behind their crime search (unfortunately can't post the link to a competitor site):
"Crime rates can appear higher than you think if you have a lot of tourists (non-permanent residents) in your community, because the number of crimes (violent, property, or both) is divided by the permanent population, creating a crime rate per 1,000 residents. If you have a lot of visitors, these people can increase the number of crimes, but do not count in establishing the rate because they don't live there, thus increasing the crime rate score per 1,000 residents. Therefore it is always valuable to look at both the crime rate, and the actual reported or estimated number of crime incidences in the neighborhood or community."