JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office continues its pledge to be transparent with a new series launched online called Sheriff’s Corner.
Sheriff T.K. Waters recaps the last year’s crime statistics and discuss the decreases in certain crimes and the increases in others.
For example, the number of murders in 2023 dropped to 120 people killed, which is 12 less than 2022.
Violent crimes like forcible sex offenses went down 9.4 percent, and kidnappings or abductions decreased 10.3 percent as well.
“I’m extremely, extremely pleased to see that decrease, because when it comes to violent crime in our community, you know, that’s concerning of course,” Waters said. “Our community members are really, really focusing on those numbers. And I think that a lot of our news media outlets are always, you know, announce when we reach 100 homicides in the city, but it’s really good when we can report that we’ve also
seen some decreases.”
Waters spoke at length about the murder rate in Jacksonville, sharing specific demographics of the victims, namely that 89 of the 120 murder victims were black men - something Waters called astonishing.
“In this city, when we lose that number of young men or women, no matter who it is or what color they are - it’s concerning,” he said. “But when you look at that, there’s a real issue that we are dealing with and we’re having to deal with.”
He goes on to explain that of the 89 black male victims of murder, the known suspects who were also black men was 34, and there were 55 unknown suspects.
Despite some decreases in violent crimes, Sheriff Waters says murder is linked to other problems in the city as well, citing how some kinds of crimes beget more crimes.
“Drugs, shootings, and murder are connected,” Waters said. “They’re almost like family - where there’s one, there’s always the other.”
A spike in auto theft was the greatest rise in crime over 2023, according to stats from JSO.
The number of cars stolen in 2022 was 2925, and it rose nearly 53-percent last year due to a trend with online tutorials, specifically two brands of cars Waters explains.
“Viral social media posts on how to steal those vehicles and so younger people, older people, whoever decides they want to take those vehicles - they go and they starting stealing them. That’s what created a huge jump in our auto theft numbers,” Waters said.
JSO has also adopted the FBI’s National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) helping to set the bar of accurate crime stat reporting.
To learn more about the data and new practices of JSO, you can click here to watch the full episode.