Biscayne Park Crime Statistics 2012- 2015

I’ve had the perception over the past couple of years that our crime rate in Biscayne Park has increased in frequency. Perhaps this is due to now having two sources reporting crime events (Crime Watch and Next Door) and receiving duplicate notices. Other than that, I’m not really sure where this “feeling or perception” has come from. Be that the case or not, please see below our crime statistics for the period from 2012-2015. These stats were obtained from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement- link here:  http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/cms/FSAC/UCR-Reports.aspx - under County and Municipal Offense Data.

For this review, we will focus more on an overview of the Total Crime Index, Crime Rate Percentage Index Change, and the Percentage of Cleared Cases. For those of you that want to see all of the various crime statistics broken down individually, please visit the above link.

Total Crime Index                   % Index Change (year-to-year)                        % of Cleared Cases  

2015- 65                                    +80.6%                                                                   1.5%

2014- 36                                    +33.3%                                                                   27.8%

2013- 27                                    -25.0%                                                                    85.2%

2012- 36                                    -25.0%                                                                    69.4%

So, based on the numbers, my suspicion was indeed correct in that we are experiencing a higher Total Crime Index (number of crimes) over the past several years. However, I will add that based on the other 39 municipalities in Dade County, our numbers remain fairly low. Last year, 2015, we were the 8^th lowest crime rate city in all of Dade County. 

Here are a couple more information points to consider. Last year we led ALL other Dade County municipalities in the increase of crime rate index change 2014-2015 (+80.6%) and had the lowest % of cases cleared at just 1.5%. The average for all other cities in cases cleared in 2015 was 20.8%.

 





Let’s now look at some other local municipalities for comparison:

Total Crime Index                     % Index Change (year-to-year)                     % of Cleared Cases

2015

El Portal- 94                               -13.0%                                                                    9.6%

Miami Shores- 622                   +5.8%                                                                     15.0%

Aventura- 2172                         +5.7%                                                                     35.4%

North Miami- 3170                   -8.2%                                                                     15.2%

Surfside- 137                            -13.3%                                                                     28.5%

Bal Harbour- 95                       -12.0%                                                                     36.8%

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Of course, the overall population is higher in all the cities excluding El Portal and Bal Harbour.

Population Total

Biscayne Park= 3,147

El Portal= 2,334

Miami Shores= 10,806

Aventura= 37,473

North Miami= 62,380

Surfside= 5,703

Bal Harbour= 2,778

Proactive or Reactive?

This is a point that has been brought up by residents during the past several Crime Watch Meetings. Meaning, how are we planning and preparing to deal with a higher crime rate frequency? What, if any change of strategy are we (our police department) putting into action?

 

The answer that we have received from our Police Chief is to “remember to lock your doors as that is contributing to 95% of all of our crime.” And that response sounds reasonable. It boggles my mind to think that anyone in this day and age doesn’t know to lock up their cars and homes.

But, what if it’s now “too late” for simply the locking of windows and doors as it seems that the word has gotten out to the criminal element that Biscayne Park is an easy target. And if this is true, then how do we deal with this situation?  To review, our crime rate has increased by +33.3% in 2014 and by +80.6% during 2015.

During 2015 we had (3) Robberies – (19) Burglaries – (42) Larcenies and (1) car theft.

For 2012    there was (1) Robbery- (14) Burglaries- (8) Larcenies and (0) car thefts.

Beyond providing the statistics, I have no answers as to what we should expect in future or how to turn the tide on this rising crime activity within our Community. Our police department represents 39% of our overall budget and is by far our largest tax expense. For any specific questions, I would suggest to contact our police department directly. For more general questions and or discussion, please feel free to use the comment section below.

Standing Watch,

Milton Hunter

The Biscayne Parker

miltonhunter@gmail.com



 UPDATE: Friday 7/8/2016

All,
For whatever the reason, the discussion of this blog post is taking place on another location- the Nextdoor site. For anyone wishing to follow the comments from our neighbors and aren't signed up  there, please click here:

https://biscaynepark.nextdoor.com/news_feed/?lc=7741&is=nce&mobile_deeplink_data=action%3Dview_post%26post%3D28252423&s=&link_source_user_id=7317286&post=28252423&ct=Kx1oKeYtyp76gS7iPL3vOgzQmlQgh-ZPM8lN8DmBTx77O4XULIZIMLy_dk0Q1uWY- copy and paste into your browser if needed.