Analysis: 2025 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 2025. 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, failures to appear, etc.), and those for which we do (warrants and mittimus arrests). 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 2025 and compare them to 2024.

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. Although concealed and open carry are legal in Florida, we track a “Carry no permit” category to capture any crime that violates state or federal carry laws (e.g., short-barreled rifles, machine guns, or people ineligible for concealed carry).

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. For 2025, there were 84 different charges we did not track.

The table below shows the number of bookings and charges for the 37 categories we tracked. The results were mixed: 89 (1.9%) more bookings than in 2024, but 1,597 (13.6%) fewer charges.

The table 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 previously recorded those 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 2024 by category

Overall, crimes against people and weapons offenses were mixed, crimes against property were down, and other crimes were up:

• Crimes against people: 1.9% fewer bookings, but 1.3% more charges
• Crimes against property: 2.2% fewer bookings and 1.8% fewer charges
• Other crimes: 9.2% more bookings and 7.5% more charges
• Weapon offenses: 15.3% fewer bookings, but 13.8% more charges

Crimes against people saw decreases in most categories, but non-domestic battery, child abuse, and stalking/voyeurism were up significantly in 2025 compared to 2024.

Almost all property crimes were down in 2025 except for arson (one additional booking and 3 additional charges), thefts (nearly 5% increase in both bookings and charges; these are all thefts other than guns or vehicles), and trespassing (up 2.9% by bookings and 3.3% by charges).

Offenses in our “Other crimes” category were up in all categories except civil orders (typically failure to pay child support) and fraud charges (fake ID or swindling). We excluded charges for a 2024 suspect arrested with 2,023 charges for stolen IDs. If those charges had been included, charges for “Other crimes” would have decreased 26.7% from 2024 to 2025.

Bookings for weapons offenses were down in nearly all categories except for four additional “Carry no permit” bookings and one additional altered gun booking. Charges were down for crimes using a gun or weapon, but charges for felons possessing weapons were up significantly (76.6%). “Carry no permit” and altered gun charges were also up, but the amounts were very small.

Data from the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office

To see how the differences in jail bookings corresponded to differences in reported crime statistics (not all crimes result in arrests), we looked at incident data from the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office (ASO) and Gainesville Police Department (GPD).

ASO provided us with their computer-aided dispatch (CAD) calls for service data. After a slight increase (0.2%) in 2024, calls for service decreased by 5% in 2025. While there were roughly 84,000 calls for service in both 2023 and 2024, there were only 80,095 calls in 2025.

Despite fewer calls for service, ASO saw increases in calls for robbery, sexual battery, harassing/threatening calls, hit and run crashes, impaired drivers, and narcotics violations. All of the categories listed above, except robbery, also saw double-digit increases from 2023 to 2024.

While there were fewer calls for armed suspects and shots heard/fired, there were more calls for people shot and people stabbed.

The decrease from 84,292 to 80,095 calls for service seems like a big number, but the actual daily impact was probably not apparent to the agency. On average in 2024, ASO responded to 230 calls per day (9.6 per hour). For 2025, that dropped to 219 calls per day (9.1 per hour). ASO was still pretty busy in 2025.

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

Data from Gainesville Police Department

GPD presented year-to-date crime statistics at the February 5th Gainesville City Commission meeting. The slide below comes from GPD’s presentation (slide 4).

The decrease in crime was even greater for GPD than ASO — 16.2% less crime overall, with a 10% reduction in violent crime and 17.6% less property crime. Every category reported by GPD shows a decrease from 2024 to 2025 except for rape, which was up 8.2%, from 134 to 145 incidents.

Firearms incidents in Gainesville

GPD also provided updated figures on firearms incidents (shootings and confiscations). Based on GPD’s numbers, shooting incidents declined dramatically from 2024 to 2025. This is the third straight year with fewer shots fired: the reduction was 23 (13.5%) from 2022 to 2023, 17 (11.6%) from 2023 to 2024, and 66 (50.8%) from 2024 to 2025. The number of people injured in shooting incidents decreased substantially — by 26 (63.4%) — in 2025. (GPD did not provide data on gang-related shots fired for 2025.)

The data on the number of firearms seized by GPD in 2025 was mixed. According to the presentation on February 5, GPD confiscated 5.8% more firearms in 2025 than 2024 (272 vs. 257). However, based on an itemized list provided by GPD, it appears the number of firearms seized dropped 16.2% (353 vs. 421). It is possible that the presentation was reporting incidents, while the Excel file we received listed actual firearms. (Multiple firearms can be confiscated in a single incident.) We asked GPD for clarification but did not receive a response in time for publication.

We do our best to classify the firearms that are confiscated, based on the data provided by GPD. Some entries are very specific and easy to classify (e.g., SCCY CPX-2), but others are vague (e.g., “9mm Ruger” can be either a handgun or a rifle, depending on the model). Handguns as a percentage of all firearm seizures were in the low 70s the last two years, down from 80% in 2023. “Assault-style” (i.e., AR and AK) firearms were up from 3% of weapons seized in 2024 to 4.5% in 2025.

Every data source for 2025 showed a decrease in shooting incidents. The ASO data discussed in the previous section showed a decrease in incidents for shots heard or fired (down 23.3% from 2024 to 2025). However, while GPD reported a decrease in persons injured, ASO had a 26.7% increase in incidents for people shot (up from 15 to 19). FIBRS data also showed a decrease in weapons offenses, down 36% from 2024 to 2025.

Data from the 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 2025 data is only updated through September 2025. The full data for 2025 will not be published until the end of February.

The table below compares FIBRS data for Alachua County through the first three quarters of 2024 and 2025. For Alachua County, the data only includes ASO, GPD, UFPD, and HSPD.

According to FIBRS, total crime in Alachua County dropped 33% (7,031 incidents in the first three quarters of 2025, compared to 10,498 in 2024). This drop seems much greater than what was reported by ASO and GPD, but it is likely because the 2025 data is not complete. At this time last year, FIBRS showed 7,922 incidents for the first three quarters of 2024, and now it shows 11,202 incidents. The FDLE site warns: “This dashboard displays data that has been voluntarily submitted to the Florida Incident Based Reporting System (FIBRS). It is intended for informational purposes only and should not be interpreted as a complete representation of crime or reporting across the entire state.” It should also include a warning that the latest round of data is likely to change dramatically in the next twelve months.

Using the data currently available in FIBRS, crime in all three top-level categories (violent, property, and other) dropped by 47.5%, 40.5%, and 22.7%, respectively, from 2024 to 2025.

Crime in almost every category was down, with only a few exceptions in categories with small numbers of incidents:

• Larceny from coin-operated machines (up from 1 to 6 incidents)
• Arson (up from 8 to 9 incidents)
• Bribery (up from 0 to 1 incident)
• Hacking/Computer Invasion (up from 2 to 4 incidents)

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.

Most crimes were down in 2025

Despite (or because of) more bookings at the county jail, crime reports were down in 2025 compared to 2024, according to most data sources. The reporting sites had very different figures, but most of them showed decreases in almost every category. While our local leaders credit partnerships between local governments and community nonprofits, policy changes at the State Attorney’s Office have led to an increase in the number of people held without bail, which may also contribute to the decrease in crime.