In April, 1993, Barbara Meller-Jensen, a tourist from Germany and the mother of two small children, was murdered in what has become known as a "bump-and-run" robbery only five miles from Miami International Airport. Jensen was the seventh tourist killed in Florida in the previous seven months. By October of that year, there were nine such murders. These murders have become a frightening South Florida trend: young criminals stalking tourists who drive clearly marked rental cars. Unfortunately, for years, Florida has suffered the highest overall crime rate of any state and the highest rate of violent crime. Surprisingly, only one tenth of one percent of the 41 million tourists to the state in 1992 were crime victims. However, Florida's citizens are the ones who endure the worst. In 1992, more than eight out of every 100 residents were crime victims. About a seventh of the victims suffered greatly; they were raped, robbed, or assaulted. Nine Floridians out of every 100,000 were stabbed, shot, or otherwise murdered in 1992, and mostly by other Floridians. The national murder rate in 1992 was 9.3 per 100,000. By that measure at least U.S. tourists to Florida were safer in Florida than if they had stayed home.
However, this is small comfort to any of Florida's victims, and one reason for the national and worldwide dismay at Florida's crime is the bizarre and chance nature of it. There is a perception of randomness to it, according to Steven Wisotsky, a professor at Fort Lauderdale's Nova University law center. Many crimes have involved someone shooting someone else on an expressway, or hurling concrete blocks off an overpass onto drivers.
Many have come forward to offer some explanation for the randomness of Florida's crime. Edna Buchanan, a police reporter for the Miami Herald, offers the insight that Florida's crime has always been bizarre because of its location. It is at the bottom of the map and people who...