Reported crime in Manatee County took a steep dive in 2025, with officials touting a nearly one-fifth drop countywide. The Manatee County Sheriff’s Office says overall crime fell 19.7 percent last year and is crediting its deputies for the shift, highlighting the numbers in a bold social media graphic that paints a sharply improving picture of public safety.
Numbers Shared On The Sheriff’s Facebook Page
In a Wednesday post, the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office reported that overall crime dropped 19.7 percent in 2025, with violent crime down 22.6 percent and property crime down 18.8 percent, according to the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office Facebook. The post featured a graphic that broke out percentage changes by crime type but did not include raw incident counts or explain how the percentages were calculated.
Breakdown By Category
The sheriff’s graphic showed larceny down 16.1 percent, motor vehicle theft down 31.9 percent, aggravated assault down 23.6 percent, robbery down 39.6 percent, burglary down 27.3 percent and murder down 30 percent. “The men and women of the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office are tireless and their work is the reason for the drop in crime,” Sheriff Rick Wells wrote in the post, according to the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office Facebook. Every listed category showed a decrease, at least in percentage terms, which the agency frames as evidence that its strategies are paying off.
How It Stacks Up Around Tampa Bay
The Manatee numbers are not happening in a vacuum. Nearby Hillsborough County also reported a sizable dip, logging a 12.79 percent overall crime drop for 2025 in data submitted to the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), its sheriff’s office said in a February release. That Hillsborough report credited sustained enforcement strategies and partnerships for several years of reductions, suggesting a broader regional trend of lower reported crime in 2025, according to the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office.
Local Efforts That May Be Playing A Role
In Manatee County, officials have been rolling out new tools and policies that could be part of the backdrop for these numbers. The sheriff’s office launched an online non-emergency reporting portal in mid-2025 and the county adopted a curfew for those under 16 last fall. Both steps were highlighted in local coverage as pieces of a broader push to free deputies for higher-priority patrol and prevention work, according to Pulse of Manatee…