LIVE OAK — After two years of falling crime rates, Suwannee County saw a significant change in 2016.

The City of Live Oak followed suit according to the Uniform Crime Reports released last week by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

According to the UCR, the total crime rate (number of offenses per 100,000 people) in Suwannee County rose 35.5 percent from 2015 to 2016 and the violent crime rate rose 72.5 percent.

That followed drops of 10 percent in 2014 and nearly 25 percent in 2015.

Suwannee County at a glance

The 895 total index of crimes is the county’s highest since 2013 but still considerably below the 1,040 crimes the county saw in 2011.

But crimes were up across the board in the different types of offenses: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and larceny. Larceny saw the smallest change of just a 9 percent increase, while the rest rose by at least 44 percent.

“One thing I think is this synthetic drug trend that’s going on,” Suwannee County Sheriff Sam St. John said about the increased crime. “Rape, robbery, murder, thefts and all, it’s all linked to drugs.

“I think once your drug issue goes kind of out of whack it makes everything else go out of whack. That’s not only my opinion, but I think our stats would show that too.”

Robberies nearly doubled from 19 to 33 and rape jumped from just four offenses in 2015 to 11 a year ago and there were four murders in 2016, up from one the previous year.

“Yeah, it’s increased in the different areas, but we’ve got a 48.5 percent clearance rate and I feel real good about that,” St. John said, noting the Suwannee County Sheriff’s Office’s rate of clearing cases last year.

“And then the arrests are up.”

Live Oak also saw significant increases as the total crime rate jumped 51.2 percent and the rate of violent crimes increased 56.3 percent.

LOPD Chief Buddy Williams said those numbers can be a bit misleading, but he still was frustrated by what those numbers indicated.

“Whenever you’re a small agency like we are, it doesn’t take but one or two offenses to shoot your crime rate over the charts,” he said. “I think we’ve seen a trend in drugs has increased and any time you have an increase in drug activity, you get an increase in burglaries and robberies, etc., etc.

“I wish I had the answers.”

The city, much like the county as a whole, saw increases in nearly every specific category of at least 41 percent. Burglaries rose 53 percent and robberies jumped from 13 to 25, a 92 percent climb.

There was one murder within the city in 2016 after none the previous year.

“The violent crimes were up as well and I don’t know what the trend is,” Williams said. “I wish I had the answers to explain it.

City of Live Oak at a glance

“It’s a little frustrating right now. It’s bothersome.”

With the increase in crimes, Williams said the role of law enforcement has never been more important. But the LOPD needs help from the community as well in flipping those numbers once again.

“Our job is definitely not getting any easier,” he said. “People are a lot less cooperative. It’s frustrating.

“We’re trying to do a few more things through community policing. But it seems to me we’ve lost a sense of community at times because everybody is so busy.”

While Suwannee County and Live Oak’s crime increased, overall the crime rate dropped 4.4 percent within the state with the violent crime rate dipping 3.5 percent.