Analysis: 2024 had more jail bookings and less crime

ANALYSIS

BY LEN CABRERA

The first part of our booking log summary (found here) showed the demographic breakdown of the individuals booked into the Alachua County Jail during 2024. It also showed how many were booked multiple times or for multiple charges and gave a basic breakdown on types of charges, arrests for which we do not track individual charges (out-of-county, out-of-state, probation violations, failure to appear, etc.), and those for which we do (warrant and mittimus). It concluded with the law enforcement agency breakdown for mittimus bookings. In this second part, we will look at the actual charges and other crime statistics for 2024 and compare them to 2023.

Categorizing offenses

In the booking log produced daily by the Alachua County Jail, charges are listed in text boxes, often with inconsistent abbreviations and frequently lacking sufficient detail to correctly record the full extent of the crimes alleged. Starting in 2023, we began classifying charges into 37 broad categories each day to simplify the end-of-year analysis. We grouped them into crimes against people, crimes against property, other crimes, and weapons offenses.

The Florida Incident-Based Reporting System (FIBRS) also uses 37 categories, but ours are different and are based on the information we see in the booking logs. For example, the booking log usually only lists “petit theft” or “grand theft” with a dollar amount. FIBRS lists nine different types of theft (pick pocketing, purse snatching, shoplifting, from motor vehicle, motor vehicle parts, from building, coin-operated machine, all other, and motor vehicle theft).

For weapons offenses, however, we capture more detailed information than FIBRS does. FIBRS only uses “weapons offenses,” but we were able to use arrest reports and court records to break out gun crimes from crimes with other weapons. We also separated several other types of weapons charges.

There were many other offense types that we did not track for various reasons: those that are not included in FIBRS, only occurred a few times, and/or mostly administrative or public order crimes.

The table below shows the numbers of bookings and charges for the 37 categories we tracked. It only includes new local charges (no out-of-county or out-of-state warrants) and omits jail bookings for failure to appear at a hearing (FTA), violation of probation (VOP), or an individual who has been sentenced because we record charges at the time of the original arrest. Here, as in Part One, “Bookings” are individuals booked into the Alachua County Jail and “Charges” are the offenses allegedly committed by those individuals (see the notes below the table for additional information).

Changes from 2023 by category

Overall, crimes against people were mixed: 0.9% fewer bookings and 0.7% more charges. Crimes against property were also mixed: 2.1% fewer bookings and 0.5% more charges. Note that the charges exclude two individuals who had 1,764 charges each in 2023 (stolen credit cards). Including them makes charges for property crimes drop 61% from 2023 to 2024. “Other” crimes increased significantly: 2.5% more bookings and 7.3% more charges. Again, the charges exclude an individual booked in 2024 with 2,023 charges for stolen IDs. Including those charges makes the increase look even worse: 57% increase from 2023 to 2024.

Overall weapons offenses were up 14.4% by bookings and 22.0% by charges after dropping 9.8% and 11.7% respectively from 2022 to 2023. People booked with gun charges were up significantly: 35.8% by bookings and 50.5% by charges. (These were up 21.4% by bookings and 16.6% by charges from 2022 to 2023).

Based on bookings, non-domestic batteries were down over 10% from 2023 to 2024 (both by bookings and charges), but domestic assault/battery was up. Sexual assaults were down (17.0% by bookings, 8.5% by charges). Violent crimes (homicide, sexual assault, robbery, and non-domestic battery) decreased by 10.3% in bookings and 9.1% in charges.

Other crimes that increased significantly include child abuse (26.9%), gun theft (60.6%), driving with suspended or revoked license (52.4%), fraud-ID (35.7%), and fraud-swindle (47.6%). These could be a result of better enforcement, not necessarily more crime.

Data from Alachua County Sheriff’s Office

To see how the differences in jail bookings corresponded to differences in actual crime statistics, we looked at incident data from ASO and GPD.

ASO provides crime report data to City Protect, a subsidiary of Motorola Solutions. The system is supposed to record all of the incidents created by ASO’s computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system. Unfortunately, it appears the 2024 data is incomplete or corrupted. Both 2022 and 2023 had over 200,000 incidents, but the 2024 data has less than 80,000 incidents. Some crime categories, like domestic battery (S29D) and narcotics violation (S19), have no incidents listed. We contacted ASO’s Data Systems Administrator, who said all of the City Protect data is inaccurate. The correct numbers for total incidents 2022 through 2024 were 92,671, 84,136, and 84,293, respectively. That means a 9.2% drop in calls for service from 2022 to 2023 and a 0.2% increase from 2023 to 2024. For the county at large, the figures are 191,983, 183,467, and 183,588. That’s a 4.4% drop in calls for service from 2022 to 2023 and a 0.1% increase from 2023 to 2024. Either way, it appears law enforcement experienced about the same workload in 2024 as in 2023.

The data in the table above was pulled on January 28, 2025, so the 2024 data may not match the figures presented by ASO in January 2024. According to ASO’s Data Systems Administrator, figures in the system change over time for various reasons (judge’s orders to expunge incidents, calls added later if CAD was down, geographical corrections, and occasional changes to how ASO handle calls).

While the total workload was about the same, the nature of the calls was different. ASO saw significant decreases in calls for robbery, criminal mischief, and armed suspects. However, there were significant increases in calls for harassing/threatening calls, impaired/reckless driver, and persons shot.

To put the total CAD incidents into perspective, consider the incidents per day. For ASO calls, that would be 254, 231, and 230 for 2022, 2023, and 2024, respectively. County-wide, the numbers are 526, 503, and 502. Those translate into law enforcement responding to a call for service about 21 times per hour.

It’s important to note that a CAD incident does not necessarily mean a crime was committed or a person was arrested.

Data from Florida Department of Law Enforcement

Another way to look at crime in Alachua County is by using the Florida Incident-Based Reporting System (FIBRS) maintained by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Unfortunately, the 2024 data is only updated through September 2024. According to the FDLE website, the full data for 2024 will not be published until February 28.

The table below compares FIBRS data for Alachua County through the first three quarters of 2023 and 2024. This includes data from ASO, GPD, and UFPD. Last year, we only looked at GPD because ASO’s 2022 data did not appear complete. According to FIBRS, total crime in Alachua County dropped nearly 30% (11,202 incidents in 2023 compared to 7,922 in 2024). Crime in all three overarching categories (violent, property, and other) dropped by 28.9%, 31.5%, and 27.3% from 2023 to 2024.

The Gainesville Police Department reported even larger drops in crime from 2023 to 2024. Almost every single category saw similar drops as the county-wide data, with the exception of “stolen property offenses,” which increased 333% (3 to 13). ASO’s reporting was not as favorable as GPD’s: violent crimes droped 6.9%, but property crimes were up 7.1% and other crimes were up 31.2%. Total crime reported by ASO was up 18.6% (2,408 incidents in 2023 compared to 2,857 in 2024).

The types of charges listed in FIBRS do not match what is recorded in the booking log because the booking logs use terminology from Florida statutes. According to FDLE: “The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Uniform Crime Report (UCR) Program standardizes crime data based on nationally relevant offense definitions in lieu of using state-specific statute classifications.”

For example, in FIBRS, “aggravated assault” is defined as “an unlawful attack by one person upon another wherein the offender uses a dangerous weapon or displays it in a threatening manner or the victim suffers obvious severe or aggravated bodily injury, or where there was a risk for serious injury/intent to seriously injure.” This includes Florida charges for both aggravated assault and aggravated battery. In FIBRS “simple assault” is defined as “an unlawful physical attack by one person upon another where neither the offender displays a dangerous weapon, nor the victim suffers obvious severe or aggravated bodily injury involving apparent broken bones, loss of teeth, possible internal injury, severe laceration, or loss of consciousness.” According to Florida statutes this is simple battery. Florida charges for simple assault (a threat to commit violence with the ability to carry out the threat) do not appear to be counted in FIBRS.

It’s not surprising that aggregated crime data is not very good, especially when combining data from different states that use different definitions. The aggregated data is also questionable because it does not include data from all of the local agencies. The FIBRS data from FDLE does not include all local agencies in Alachua County; there are no incidents reported by the Alachua or High Springs Police Departments. National data is even worse. The latest available participation data from the FBI only goes through 2023. In total, only 73% of state and local law enforcement agencies reported data in 2023. For the state of Florida, it was only 44%, even worse than the 49% in 2022.

Data from Gainesville Police Department

The data that GPD presents to the Gainesville City Commission does not match FIBRS because they report fewer categories. Also, in the October 17 City Commission meeting, GPD’s presentation only included numbers from Q3 rather than Q1-Q3. (This could be because they were highlighting the fact that there were zero homicides in the third quarter.) The slide below comes from that presentation.

The figures above were added to the year-to-date figures presented through June 30 to produce the year-to-date Q3 figures so we could compare them to the FIBRS data.

These show an overall decrease in crime incidents of 10.2% and a decrease in every category except for robbery, which was up 15.6% (135 to 156). Robbery was down 20.6% in the FIBRs data. The decreases seen in total crime, violent crimes, and property crimes are much greater in FIBRS than the GPD numbers shown above, but they are all in the same direction: less crime.

There was also a discrepancy between GPD’s numbers and the data in FIBRS last year. We asked GPD to explain the difference between this slide and the data in FIBRS. They said the numbers can change based on the data reported because reports can be reviewed and incidents can be reclassified from criminal to non-criminal or vice-versa. They also said that some reports on violent crimes use the number of victims whereas others use the number of incidents. That is why the homicides in FIBRS is 7 (incidents) and in the City Commission report it’s 8 (victims).

GPD presented its statistics for the full year at the February 6th Gainesville City Commission Meeting. The slide below comes from GPD’s presentation. It shows violent crimes down 2.8%, property crimes down 25%, and overall crime down 11%.

Firearms incidents in Gainesville

GPD also provided us with updated figures on firearms incidents (shootings and confiscations). Based on GPD’s numbers, shooting incidents declined for the second straight year: by 23 (13.5%) from 2022 to 2023 and by 17 (11.6%) from 2023 to 2024. The number of people injured in shooting incidents decreased by 19 (31.7%) in 2024 after increasing by 13 (27.7%) in 2023.

The number of firearms seized by GPD in 2024 returned to 2022 levels after a significant drop in 2023. The number fell by 43 (10.1%) from 2022 to 2023 but increased by 38 (9.9%) from 2023 to 2024. The percentage of handguns as a percentage of all firearm seizures dropped from 80% in 2023 (not counting BB/pellet guns) to 72% in 2024. “Assault-style” (i.e., AR and AK) firearms were up from 2% of weapons seized to 3% (8 vs. 13).

Despite fewer shots reported by GPD and fewer weapons offenses in Alachua County according to FIBRS, ASO had more incident calls for shots fired in 2024, and there were significantly more people booked for shooting offenses.

Mixed results for 2024

Despite (or because of) more bookings at the county jail, crime reports were down in 2024 compared to 2023 according to most data sources. The reporting sites had very different figures, but most of them showed decreases in almost every category. The exceptions include stalking (up 15.8% in FIBRS), stolen property offenses (up 25% in FIBRS), harassing/threatening calls (up 19.7% in ASO CAD incidents), hit and run crashes (up 16.7% in ASO CAD incidents), impaired/reckless driver (up 22.4% in ASO CAD incidents), and narcotics violations (up 22.4% in ASO CAD incidents). Robbery was the odd category that had mixed results: a nearly 5% increase according to GPD, a 36.7% decrease in ASO CAD incidents, and 22.1% decrease county-wide in FIBRS.