John Willoughby: Greene Publishing, Inc.
On Wednesday, Nov. 22, counties in the state of Florida received the 2017 Semi-Annual Uniform Crime Report (UCR) from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE). The UCR report highlights the months of January through June.
According to the UCR report, crime in Madison County is down by 12.5 percent in 2017. From the month of January to the month of June, FDLE reported 279 crimes in Madison County. Within the crimes reported, 88 crimes committed were aggravated assault and four crimes were rape. No murders were reported.
In 2016, FDLE reported 319 crimes in Madison between January and June. Within the 319 total crimes reported, 81 crimes committed were aggravated assault and three rapes were reported. Two murders were also committed.
Throughout the state of Florida, FDLE reported that 306,817 crimes were committed. Within those reports were 531 murders, 4,073 rapes, and 29,090 aggravated assault charges.
Reported rapes are up 8.1 percent from 2016, with only 3,769 rapes reported. Aggravated assault is reduced by 1.1 percent from 2016 with a report of 29,423 aggravated assault charges and murder is reduced by 5.3 percent with a total of 561 murders reported in 2016.
Property crime has reduced by 2.1 percent with 263,879 property crimes reported. The total value of stolen items were estimated to be valued at $635,386,133.