BY MARY ELLEN KLAS
meklas@herald.com
TALLAHASSEE - Every day of last year, there were on average three murders in Florida, a robbery every 16 minutes, a burglary every three minutes and five seconds, and a forcible sex act every 41 minutes.
Those statistics -- averages compiled by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's ''Crime Clock'' -- are better than they appear, state officials said Tuesday, because serious crime was down in Florida for the 12th straight year in 2003.
When Florida's population growth of 600,000 people is factored in, crime dropped 4.3 percent last year, Gov. Jeb Bush and law enforcement officials announced, a measure that brings the crime rate to a 33-year low.
It is ''the lowest crime rate since the creation of the crime rate index,'' the governor said. He attributed the continuous decline to good laws, good prosecutions and good work by law enforcement.
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