What really started me down this track was an event that happened very close to home. One of my neighbors had their car burglarized. And it got me to thinking what crime was really like here in the Village.

I don't know if you do it, but I find myself going to this map posted on the Sun-Sentinel a few times per month.

What I found was very interesting. Look at the number of crimes reported during the last four week period. Take a look at the map. Not very many incidents (just 19) over the past four weeks. Had to scratch my head as it didn't make sense to me.

I stumbled on this site on the internet this week and, well, I just had to make a few comments.

Looking at this link, you will find a chart that lists, from worst to best, the cities in Florida ranked for crime. The best was Marco Island and the worst was Opa-Locka. Where was Wellington?

Hanging in there at number 39. Whoa! The 39th best city in Florida ranked by crime? We can't be that high can we? Who was better than Wellington?

Niceville, right there at number 5 (maybe I could have guessed that one). Parkland at 12. North Palm Beach at 20 with it's neighbor, Palm Beach Gardens at 23. Wait a minute, Pt. Ste. Lucie is in at 19? You gotta be kidding me.

Who is a little worse? Vero Beach at 58; Jupiter at 55; Key West at 96; West Palm Beach at 132 and Orlando at 142.

Do these numbers surprise you? They do me. So I looked into a little further by clicking on the Wellington link.

Here's our crime rating:

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A 2.7? Worse than average? Why?

Let's look at this (from the website):

Wellington, Florida has a violent crime rate of 309 incidents per 100,000 people. This compares with a rate of 858 in Florida and a rate of 596 nationally. Lower numbers are better, indicating that fewer crimes happen per person in the population.

And,

Wellington, Florida has a property crime rate of 3415.3 incidents per 100,000 people. This compares with an average rate of 5098.0 in Florida and an average rate of 4296 incidents per 100,000 nationally. Lower numbers are better, indicating that fewer crimes happen per person in the population.

These two factors (for 2004) gave us our crime rating of 2.7.

Take a look at those numbers for a second. Using my math, there are 3,724 incidents per 100,000 people. Let's say there are 60,000 people in Wellington, doing the math, hmmmm, that computes out to 2,234 incidents. Divide that by 12 (that would be months in the year, a month being what the chart in the link points to) and you get 186 incidents.

Now I know that there has to be editing on that story, but why the huge difference in numbers? They show just 19 incidents in a month. Where are the rest? What are they? I don't know but it made me wonder about those numbers above and if they were accurate as reported for 2004.

So, what's next?

I have a call in to the Community Affairs office of the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office. I want to speak to one of crime statisticians about Wellington.

I have a few questions.

Such as, what percent of crime in Wellington is committed by Wellington residents? Do you track arrest records by address? If so, can you tell me the neighborhoods in which the perps live? Are there 50 addresses responsible for the bulk of the crime? Are there 25 addresses? Less than 10? Less than 5?

After all, the crime seems to be clustered into small groups. Why wouldn't the people responsible for the crimes have the same behavior?

I'm sort of curious. Aren't you?

I trust they will call back. If not, I'll call again. And we can find out what's going on with crime in the Village of Wellington.

Stay tuned ...

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