nicky_b

As people can see from my other threads, l have been seriously considering a move from uk to florida, as everywhere there is crime, but with 2 children its not just ourselves to think of. Is crime really that bad in Florida? We were looking at moving to a nice area, perhaps renting in a gated community, but obviously do not want to feel like prisoners. Love to hear from you!

Englishtart

It's a bit dramatic to tar the whole State with the same brush, (sorry not trying to offend) but there are hardly any States (if at all) that don't have crime. It all depends on where you are living in that State as to wether you are affected by it. As a rule (but not always) the closer you are to a city, the more crime there will be, but then you can be 15 mins out of the City and be in a lovely area Look at the site 'citydata.com' you can get lots of info on there about crime rates etc. Check out older threads in the search option at the top of the page and also check out the wiki, there have been lots of threads on Florida, i'm sure you will get lots of info from those too.

Don't be too discouraged, just do some research, as you say, with small kids you have to be in a safe area. Good luck

nicky_b

thanks englishtart, l will have a good look through. I am just starting to find my way around the site now!

Englishtart

Welcome, if you need any help, give me a yell...or ask anyone

scrubbedexpat099

It seems that Florida has one of the better Concealed Carry Permits. Where I am many people take that course or the Nebraska one. You do need to pull the trigger to do the CO one.

chartreuse

I think a lot of folks do that to gain extra states that they can carry in. For example, WA doesn't recognise a TX CHL, so folks round here will get a FL or UT permit, in addition to their TX one, to cover them on visits to WA.

There's a handy reciprocity map here.

Rete

Also bear in mind that gated communities are not always gated just called that. There might well be a guard's checkin house at the entrance but there is no gate and usually no guard. Found this out at both places my daughter lived, one in Naples, Flordia and one in Las Vegas.

Englishtart

That's pretty wierd huh? we live in one of those 'gated' communities too, with an empty guard house at the side of the road

callowman

For me, crime here is bad in certain places
I live in Oviedo, a great family town which I would recommend-voted in the top 50 places to live in the US !
we dont have much crime due to very good local police (and top A rated schools!) BUT.. even here in sleepy ol Oviedo last year had 2 murders (both family related, not random)

but be prepared when you watch local news to get daily reports of shootings, bodies found etc
I was shocked at first but i guess im used ito it now (sadly).
the USA has a the worst gun crime in the world but its usually between gangs, and ghetto,drugs shootings etc.
as long as you stay away from them its fine.

we dont seem to have the knife crime here that you do in the UK though !

Ray

A gated community just means you will pay 1000s of dollars a year for an OAP to control the gate now and again when he has time..

They can deny acess to nobody ..most are public roads

callowman

Ray's right (sometimes) :-)
gated dont stop burglars.
we got a nice little cabin at our front entrance-just there for show :-)
the streets are city streets-which brings up a point-why does my HOA pay for common area grass cutting etc if they are city streets !!
Hmmmm
PS-i HATE HOAs !

WARPed

As has been said it very much depends on where you live in the state and is normally worse in the cities. I live in St Pete and I think it is pretty bad here (Tampa Bay Area). South of the bay (Manatee County) is further from the metropolis, yet over the last year had a HUGE amount of violent home invasions.

You need to do your homework with the various resources at hand. This site might prove helpful to you. Just pick a city in FL and then zoom out. Not all cities report their data but something is better than nothing. This is a link to crime in my area over the last 3 days. Colorful isn't it..but no homicides unless you go back 14 days! WOW that is good! 3 in the last 30 days though.

My concern with kids would not be the crime...but the abysmal schooling here. I don't have kids yet, but when I do I think I will want to be elsewhere before they go to classes.

AmerLisa

I'm right with you there.... We have an HOA.....I hate them as well. Bunch of blood sucking Nazis!

And we live in a gated community as well. What a joke! We don't have a gate guard, we were all given remotes to get in - yeah they never really worked. So people were breaking the stupid gates all the time and most of the time they were open. So the HOA decided to leave them open 7am through 7pm every day. And if you miss the 7pm curfew you have to (unless you're in the rare bunch that you're remote actually works!) go to the keypad and put your code in. The gates are the biggest joke (besides the HOA) around here!

sir_eccles

In my experience, gated communities are a false sense of security. Basically in theory you have a gate that keeps undesirables out but in reality the code isn't exactly a secret. The mail man, UPS, Fedex, the gardener, the plumber, the pizza delivery guy, almost everyone knows the code because it is handed out like confetti because you have to. Even if you didn't hand out the code it usually isn't hard to guess. Let's start with years when your kids were born 1980.

Dan725

Wow, bit broad brush that question isn't it - You can't really boil that down to a state...or city, or even a small village. It's the same the world over. Florida is not Somalia - one could say crime in Florida/the US in general is about the same as crime in the UK - in other words, decide where to live as you would decide in the UK.