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The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office is intent on changing the script of American cities plagued by crime by implementing policy changes that have led to violent crime taking a tumble.
Following the “defund the police” movement, many cities across the nation have struggled with police retention and swelling violent crime. For Jacksonville, Florida, Sheriff T.K. Waters, the issue is personal, with the elected official spending the last 33 years of his career dedicated to decreasing crime in the “murder capital of Florida”.
“We’ve long had the poor reputation of being the murder capital, which I resent,” he told Fox News Digital. “Don’t like it at all because our city’s a lot more than that.”
Jacksonville’s nickname came after the city saw year-after-year of high murder rates – until 2024, when police reported more than a 50% drop from 2023, when murders fell from 122 to 59. That continued a decline from 2022, when the department reported 134 murders. The sheriff’s office said 2024’s total of 59 murders was the lowest since 1995, when there were 86 murders.
Waters highlighted the importance of having enough funding from the city commissioners to remain on top of Florida’s continued population growth.
“Jacksonville is a huge city, and our population when I started was about 700,000. We’re over a million now,” he said. “But we’ve been able to go backwards when it comes to violence, instead of increasing, because the city funds us – our city council is amazing.”
He also discussed the importance of having a prompt law enforcement presence when citizens call for assistance.
“If we don’t do that, we lose control and our city, our city becomes ungovernable, and we won’t be able to function,” he said. “So a lot of our success is the result of not defunding us. I don’t think people really realize that.”
Waters shared that the seeds of the changes began nearly a decade ago and are now bearing results.
In 2016, he started a program working solely on violent crime. And it was a one-man team – that was me,” he said. “And he allowed me to build that goal, that team out, and throughout the years, we built out a very robust team focused on combating violent crime.”
He shared that his team is focused on building relationships with community members and being transparent with their constituents.
“We deliver the message, and it’s that we want to keep you safe, we want to keep you alive, we want to keep you out of prison. But if you decide you want to, we’re going to do what we’re supposed to do as a law enforcement agency and put you in prison,” he said.
Waters also discussed Jacksonville’s robust gang unit, saying, “We have a crime intelligence center, and we have our citywide community problem response team, and they all work in concert and focus very heavily on the people that we know are the shooters in our neighborhoods and our communities.”
While other cities have been stretching their police forces thin, Jacksonville has been bulking up by focusing on what law enforcement forces need to continue doing their jobs to the best of their abilities.
“We have a crime intelligence center, and we have our citywide community problem response team, and they all work in concert and focus very heavily on the people that we know are the shooters in our neighborhoods and our communities,” he said.
Overall, Waters said he is committed to continually improving and wants the homicide numbers to be at zero.
“My goal is that I want to hear almost universally that our community feels safe,” he said. “Across the board, not just pockets, but I wanted across the board. I wanted people to feel safe when they’re going home, when they’re going to the grocery store and when they’re driving on the roadways.”