Photo courtesy of STOCK

By David L. Snelling
South Florida Times

MIAMI – The crime rate in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties have seen a drop, reflecting a national trend of declining criminal activities in most U.S. cities.

Miami-Dade Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz and Brett Skiles, the Special Agent in Charge for the F.B.I. in Miami, announced the county reduction in crimes during a news conference at Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office headquarters in Doral.

The two law enforcement agencies released the figures showing that there were 106 homicides in Miami-Dade in 2024 and 78 in 2025, a decrease of 26 percent.

Cordero-Stutz said there were 1,157 robberies in 2024 and that number dropped to 967 in 2025, a decrease of 16 percent.

She said aggravated assaults dropped from 2,191 in 2024 to 1,933 in 2025, a decrease of 12 percent.

Burglaries dropped from 1,180 in 2024 to 1,101 in 2025, a drop of 7 percent, and homicides are down 45 percent for the first seven months of this year.

Aggravated assaults are down 32 percent.

Both agencies credit their teamwork for bringing down the crime rate.

The Miami Dade Sheriff’s Office and the FBI collaborated in a joint operation dubbed “Operation Viper’ which ran on May 29 and 30, 2025.

The operation crackdown on illegal drugs, and firearms and violent crime offenders, netting 21 arrests and seizing over seven illegal firearms in Northwest Miami-Dade.

“It has been an incredible year for us. We realize that nationally crime is down, but here locally the numbers are incredible,” Cordero-Stutz said. “That’s just since I became Sheriff. I want to say there has been a partnership of the men and women in our agency working hard every day.”

Skiles said: “This brings into play how our federal resources and statutes combined with state resources and statutes, and we get more bang for our buck in the community.”

The crime rate reduction is a relief for Miami-Dade residents and visitors, after the county experienced some of its highest violent crime rates in the late 2010s and early 2020s, according to Miami-Dade Matters.

The rate peaked during the 2019-2020 period before the drop, with aggravated assault alone at 195.2 per 100,000 and robbery at 49.9 per 100,000, according to www.crimeexplorer.com

That period also saw one of the highest rates for homicides in the past decade with 43 per 100,000, and elevated rape with 152 per 100,000, and 49.9 per 100,000 for robbery.

The 2012–2013 period also saw elevated violent crime, with homicide rates above 70 per 100,000 and rape rates above 100 per 100,00, according to City-Data.com.

Over the 2019–2023 five-year period, Miami-Dade recorded 127,251 violent crimes and 282,091 property crimes, with property crime rates over 1,600 per 100,000, far above the national average.

Burglary alone averaged 270.7 per 100,000 during that time period.

Broward County also experienced a decline in the crime rate for 2025.

According to CrimeGrade.org, Broward County’s crime rate is moderate overall, with property crime making up the majority of incidents and violent crime rates below the national average.

Reports indicated about 19.87 crimes per 1,000 residents in a typical year, and around 5,640 total crimes in 2025 in the northeast, the highest area, compared to about 2,656 in the southeast part of Broward County.

For violent crime, Broward County recorded 3,143 per 1,000 residents and about 947 violent crimes per year in central areas, with the southeast having the fewest.

Broward County’s total crime rate (547.4 per 100,000) is 77 percent below the national benchmark of 2,335.1 per 100,000 residetns, according to crimebycounty.com.

Violent crime (65.2 per 100,000) is 83 percent below the national average, and property crime (482.2 per 100,000) is 75 percent below the national average.

Palm Beach County was also recognized as among the safest cities in Florida.

The county ranks in the 91st percentile for safety, meaning it is safer than most U.S. counties, though crime risk varies significantly by neighborhood, according to CrimeGrade.org.

In a typical year, Palm Beach County records a crime rate of 17.52 per 1,000 residents, with total annual crimes ranging from about 1,107 in the northwest to 4,009 in central areas of the county.

Over the past five years, Palm Beach County reported 61,074 violent crimes and 102,895 property crimes.

The average violent crime rate is 950 per 100,000 residents, which is substantially higher than the national average, while property crime averages 1,759 per 100,000 residents, also above the national average, according to crimeexplorer.com.

The most common offenses are property crimes, while homicide rates remain the lowest among violent crimes.

But Palm Beach County’s overall crime rate is among the best for U.S. cities in 2025, dropping by 17 percent.

Skiles said harsher federal penalties deter people from committing crimes, which is part of a broader plan by law enforcement agencies to bring down crime rates in Florida and beyond.

“Having that federal hammer is an important tool for law enforcement,” he said.

Skiles said more arrests can be made if people reach out to law enforcement and report criminal activities.

“We always need help from the public, and if any witnesses have cell phone video or Ring cam, that is helpful,” he said. “We sometimes don’t know about it until people tell us.”