Do you live in one of the murder capitals of Florida?
We all watch the news with horror when we hear about a homicide that happens not that far away from us. While a murder just blocks or even a couple of towns away from your house would make anyone uneasy, in the long run, most likely, where you live is relatively safe.
So we wanted to get the facts straight and dug into the FBI crime data in order to identify the places with the most murders and the highest murder rates per capita in Florida.
The result is the 10 Murder Capitals of the Sunshine State for 2019:
- West Palm Beach (Photos)
- Lauderhill (Photos)
- Riviera Beach (Photos)
- Miami Gardens (Photos)
- Daytona Beach (Photos)
- Arcadia (Photos)
- Jacksonville (Photos)
- Fort Pierce (Photos)
- Leesburg (Photos)
- Miami (Photos)
The city with highest murder rate in Florida? That would be Arcadia with 62.6 murders per 100,000 people.
While the city with highest number of murders period? Jacksonville with 109.
Read on below to see how we crunched the numbers and how your town ranked. There were ‘only’ 113 cities in Florida where a city reported a murder to the FBI, meaning 92 places had no murder.
If you’re curious, here are the places in Florida which had the least murder chances for its residents, based on population: Pembroke Pines, Lakeland, Boca Raton, Plantation, Largo.
For more reading on the Sunshine State check out:
- 10 Best Places To Live In Florida
- 10 Cheapest Places To Live In Florida
- 10 Most Dangerous Places In Florida
How we calculated the murder capitals of Florida
While there are surveys and public polls on what cities in a state are the most dangerous, we didn’t want to rely on speculation and opinion. Instead, we looked at the hard numbers from the FBI’s last year of reporting. Specifically, we analyzed the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report which summarizes the number of murders that may happen in each city per year.
We only looked every single city in Florida for which FBI data was available for the most recent FBI Crime In The United States. That left us with 113 cities to rank.
Finally, averaged two scores:
- The raw number of murders in each city
- The murders per person
We felt as if a small place with 2,500 people and two murders makes it a lot more dangerous than a city of 25,000 people with one murder.
We must note that this report is not an analysis of the effectiveness of local police departments. It simply states where murders occurred most frequently.
West Palm Beach is a city in and the county seat of Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. It is one of the three main cities in South Florida. The population was 100,343 at the 2010 census. The University of Florida Bureau of Economic and Business Research estimates a 2016 population of 108,896, a 7.9% increase from 2010. It is the oldest municipality in the Miami metropolitan area, having been incorporated as a city two years before Miami in November 1894. Although West Palm Beach is located approximately 68 miles north of Downtown Miami, it is still considered a principal city within the Miami metropolitan area, due to the solid urbanization between both cities. The estimated population of the Miami metropolitan area, which includes all of Palm Beach County, was 6,012,331 people at the 2015 census.
Lauderhill, officially the City of Lauderhill, is a city in Broward County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city’s population was 66,887. It is a principal city of the Miami metropolitan area, which was home to an estimated 6,012,331 people at the 2015 census. Its sister city is Chaguanas, Trinidad and Tobago.
Riviera Beach is a city in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States, which was incorporated September 29, 1922. Due to the location of its eastern boundary lies, it is also the easternmost municipality in the South Florida metropolitan area. The population was 29,884 at the 2000 census. As of 2004, the population was estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau to be 32,522.
Miami Gardens is a suburban city located in north-central Miami-Dade County, Florida. Its boundaries stretch from I-95 and NE 2nd Avenue on the east, to NW 47th and NW 57th Avenues on the west, and from the Broward County line on the north, to 151st Street on the south. The city name comes from one of the major roadways through the area, Miami Gardens Drive. According to a 2011 estimate from the US Census Bureau, the city had a population of 109,680, and it is the largest city in Florida that has a majority African American population. It is a principal city of the Miami metropolitan area, which was home to an estimated 6,012,331 people at the 2015 census.
Daytona Beach is a city in Volusia County, Florida, United States. It lies about 51 miles northeast of Orlando, 86 miles southeast of Jacksonville, and 242 miles northwest of Miami. In the 2010 U.S. Census, it had a population of 61,005. It is a principal city of the Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach, FL metropolitan statistical area, which was home to 590,289 people in 2010. Daytona Beach is also a principal city of the Fun Coast region of Florida.
Arcadia is a city and county seat of DeSoto County, Florida, United States. The population was 7,637 as of the 2010 census, with an estimated population of 7,722 in 2014. Arcadia’s Historic District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Jacksonville is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Florida and the largest city by area in the contiguous United States. It is the seat of Duval County, with which the city government consolidated in 1968. Consolidation gave Jacksonville its great size and placed most of its metropolitan population within the city limits; with an estimated population of 913,010 as of 2017, Jacksonville is the most populous city in the state of Florida and the southeastern United States. The Jacksonville metropolitan area has a population of 1,626,611. It is the 34th largest MSA in the United States and fourth largest in Florida.
Leesburg is a city in Lake County, Florida, United States. The population was 15,956 at the 2000 census. As of 2005, the population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau was 19,086. Leesburg is located in central Florida, between Lake Harris and Lake Griffin, at the head of the Oklawaha River system. It is part of the Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford Metropolitan Statistical Area. Leesburg is the home of Lake-Sumter State College with campuses also in Clermont, Florida and Sumterville. It is also the home of Beacon College.
Miami is a major port city on the Atlantic coast of south Florida in the southeastern United States. As the seat of Miami-Dade County, the municipality is the principal, central, and the most populous city of the Miami metropolitan area and part of the second-most populous metropolis in the southeastern United States. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Miami’s metro area is the eighth-most populous and fourth-largest urban area in the U.S., with a population of around 5.5 million.
There You Have It – The Places With The Most Murders In Florida For 2019
If you’re looking at the places in Florida with the most murders, and where residents have the highest chances of being killed themselves, this is an accurate list. Again, these statistics are an indication of where crimes occur, not a statement about the effectiveness of the law enforcement in the areas they serve.
For more Florida reading, check out:
- 10 Best Places To Raise A Family In Florida
- These Are The 10 Fastest Growing Cities In Florida
- 10 Safest Places In Florida
- 10 Best Cities For Singles In Florida
- 10 Worst Places To Live In Florida