Crime down in Flagler County by 25% in 2020, down by 47% since 2016

Palm Coast Observer
News

The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office submitted crime statistics for the first six months of 2020 to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement as required by law semi-annually. Crime is down 24.9% in 2020 compared to the same time period in 2019.

Crime continues to fall in Flagler County and is at the lowest crime rate the county has seen in 25 years when its population was just 40,259 residents. In the first six months of 2020 overall crime is down 24.9% when compared to the same time frame in 2019.

Since 2016, total index offenses in the jurisdiction of the FCSO are down 47% with a clearance rate of 35%. Property Crime, which includes Burglary, Larceny and Motor Vehicle Theft, is down 52.5% and Violent Crime, which includes Murder, Rape, Robbery and Aggravated Assault, is down 11% overall.

“Our crime reduction strategies work,” Sheriff Rick Staly said. “Total crime in Flagler County is down 47% since I became your sheriff in 2017 because we have implemented a number of new and successful initiatives. We focus on the small number of career criminals committing most of the crimes. We arrest these criminals and put them in jail where they cannot prey on our community. Criminals outside of our county are learning to not commit crimes here as they are quickly arrested. We have a phenomenal team that I am very proud of who comes to work every day with one mission in mind: to keep our community a safe place to live, work, and visit.”

Many programs and initiatives implemented over the past three years have aided in the record- breaking reduction in crime, such as the following:

Real time crime analysis;
The latest technology;
Community and business partnerships;
A strong program of teaching citizens how to keep their property safe;
A district policing model;
Inmate rehabilitation initiatives;
Probation checks for adults and juveniles;
Guardianship policing philosophy

Programs include the following:

Dedicated P.A.C.E. team focused on problem areas and problem crimes;
Systematic Traffic Unit to perform traffic enforcement in high crash locations and complaint areas;
S.T.R.I.D.E. program in the jail to help set inmates up for success and on the right track upon release;
S.W.E.A.T. program that takes potentially troubled youth and shows them the path they are headed down if they don’t turn their lives around;
Robust communications platform to proactively communicate crime prevention information and engage the community.

The preliminary statistics reported to FDLE will be reviewed and verified before being formally distributed and posted on the FDLE website in the future. FDLE began tracking crime statistics in 1971.