A Small Florida Town is Suddenly the 3rd Most Dangerous in State

People love Florida’s warm beaches, theme parks, and wide range of cultures. Some parts of the state are not as safe and peaceful as they look, though. Indeed, a new study says that a small town in Florida is now the third most dangerous place in the whole state.

People Who live in Opa-locka

The town of Opa-locka is in Miami-Dade County, 10 miles north of Miami. It has about 16,000 people living there. In 1926, aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss started the town. He gave it a Moorish theme based on stories from One Thousand and One Nights. The town has a lot of interesting buildings, like the Opa-locka Airport, which is the world’s biggest seaplane base, and the City Hall, which looks like a huge mosque.

Opa-locka may look like a beautiful place, but it has been plagued by crime, corruption, and poverty for decades. This town has one of the highest rates of poverty in the state. More than 40% of the people who live there live below the government poverty line. The town has also had political scandals in the past, like the FBI raid in 2016 that found a large-scale plan to bribe the mayor and other officials.

The Rise in Crime

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s most recent report says that there were 1,026 crimes in Opa-locka in 2023. That’s a crime rate of 6,410 crimes per 100,000 people. Opa-locka is now the third most dangerous city in Florida, after Florida City and Lake City. The report also says that in 2023, there were 11 killings, 25 rapes, 137 robberies, 247 aggravated assaults, 232 burglaries, 346 thefts, and 28 car thefts in Opa-locka.

The study shows that Opa-locka’s crime rate went up by 15.4% since 2022, when it was 5,554 crimes per 100,000 people. Opa-locka’s violent crime rate, which includes murder, rape, robbery, and severe assault, rose by 18.9% from 2022 to 2023. In 2022, it was 1,148 crimes per 100,000 people.

Some of the things that may have led to the rise in crime in Opa-locka are the lack of jobs, the low level of education, drug dealing, gang activity, and police officers who aren’t doing their jobs well.

It is very hard to find work in this town; more than 20% of people who could be working are not. The town also has a low level of education; only 64% of the people who live there have a high school diploma or better.

Drug dealing, especially cocaine and heroin, is also very common in the town. This leads to violence and drug abuse.

There are also a number of gangs in the town, including the Opa-locka Goons, the Zoe Pound, and the Bloods.

These groups fight over territory and shoot people. The town also doesn’t have enough police officers—there are only 54 of them to serve everyone.

The Work Done to Get Better

Even though things are bad, some Opa-locka residents and government leaders are working to make the town better and lower the crime rate. Some of the things that have been done or ideas that have been put forward are

The development of a community policing unit is meant to improve trust and cooperation between the police and the people who live in the area. It is also meant to deal with issues like poverty, unemployment, and education that lead to crime.

Putting in place a program to stop crime that includes putting up fencing, lighting, and cameras in high-crime areas and giving businesses and homes incentives to make their properties safer.

The creation of a mentoring program for young people, which pairs at-risk teens with positive role models like teachers, coaches, and professionals and helps them with their schoolwork, gives them job advice, and teaches them life skills.

the creation of a plan for cultural and economic revitalization that aims to protect and promote the town’s unique history, architecture, and arts, as well as bring in new investments, businesses, and tourists.

What It Means

An awful lot of bad things happen in the Florida town Opa-locka. Crimes against people and property have made the town the third most dangerous in the state. There are a lot of problems in the town, like poverty, crime, drugs, gangs, and not enough resources. There are some good things about the town, though, like its long past, culture, and location. To get through its problems and reach its goals, the town needs more help and cooperation from the state, the county, and the community. There should be a better future for Opa-locka.