Don’t look to Florida’s presidential candidates for the truth
Here’s to Ronald “Meatball” DeSantis, who went out of his way to be a douche with his “Law and Order” tour of cities. Cities in Florida? Of course not. He visited northern cities that rub his delicate sensibilities the wrong way. Is it coincidence that Florida made its name in the slave trade and that Meatball Ron now brings today’s Republican white nationalism to some of the major cities that provided a measure of sanctuary for former slaves before and after emancipation? Halfway through writing this post about rampant crime in Florida under DeSantis, my thunder was stolen by the failed former POTUS when he posted a vicious “truth” on his personal propaganda website Truth Social. You of course can’t ever trust any statement coming out of this man (very ironic, given the name of his social media site), but here Mr. Trump’s team did not fabricate numbers out of thin air:
Yes, when examining 2020 statistics for Intentional Homicide Rates in the U.S., Florida indeed had the third highest total number of murder victims [charts from Wikipedia below]. While it’s completely stunning to learn that well over a thousand people were murdered in Florida that year, it isn’t all that useful without context. If we switch to thinking about murder rates, Florida sits comfortably in the middle, at 27th worst (murders per 100,000 people), if you include Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. Or, if you prefer, 26th best State or Territory for not getting murdered in. As usual, the mascot for Truth Social misrepresents truth.
The Secret Rampant Crime in Florida under DeSantis
Most telling is what Mr. Trump’s “truth” did not mention. As far as we know, blue-collar crime is not the type of crime he participates in; thus, it’s logical to see Trump railing against it. Furthermore, since Republican politics is largely fear-based, blue-collar crime is a perennial rightwing populist hit at speeches and rallies due to its fear factor (never mind that crime in the U.S. is lower than its been in decades). The mass media is more than happy to aid the GOP agenda of focusing on it instead of white-collar crime because “If it bleeds, it leads”. As stated in Harvard Business Review, white-collar crime “bores us: Complicated financial schemes are difficult to understand, the perpetrators and victims are often unclear”.
If you want, you can completely set aside Mr. Trump’s post and instead consider that rampant crime in Florida includes white-collar crime. Florida has long been considered a haven for fraud schemes, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. When 2018 data from the U.S. Treasury was examined by a law firm in 2019, we learned that 3 of the top 10 white-collar crime-ridden cities in the nation were in Florida: Miami (#2), Orlando (#7), and Tampa (#10).
For every 10,000 people, there are over 4,200 white collar crimes in Miami.”
— U.S. Treasury data
The crimes that Republicans will not campaign against
According to the FBI, the estimated annual cost of white-collar crimes is over $500 billion. When Americans think of blue-collar crime, they think of a grieving family, whether it be the family of a victim or the family of a perpetrator. Americans don’t spend nearly enough time thinking about how white-collar crimes destroy the fabric of society. A sole white-collar criminal can cause many individuals to lose their properties, livelihoods, etc., which in turn can unleash all manner of misery on their families. In this sense, you could even argue that white-collar crime creates some of blue-collar crime. Large enough white-collar crimes can affect thousands or even millions of citizens (the big ones tend to get attention from the mass media).
Although this type of crime has been of academic interest for decades (such as the interplay between American “downsizing” and white-collar crime), it’s only gained momentum in recent years. For instance, the Inaugural Issue of the Journal of White Collar and Corporate Crime was just in 2020. The significant grey areas today include, for example, how to determine the reach and implications of victimization, and how to pursue accountability in complex corporate structures. One thing is crystal clear, however: If politicians refuse to even discuss white-collar crime, we can’t expect things to change.
Until the definition of “legal” is no longer controlled by the people or organizations with the deepest pockets, it’s unlikely that real change will come about.”
— Harvard Business Review