"We moved here from Pensacola, Florida," he told me while suggesting the crime rate was way to high to raise a family in Pensacola. "It is much better in Murfreesboro, Tennessee," he said with a smile. He explained how prostitutes would walk up and down his street in Florida. "One day my four year old daughter went out there and told one of them to keep on walking," he said with a slight laugh.
Pensacola has a violent crime rating of 71. The scale goes from 1 to 100 with 100 being highest. The U.S. average rating is 41.4. Violent crime is composed of: murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.
The Pensacola population count only rings in at 52,000 residents. That number has steadily, but slowly declined since 1990 when the count hit about 60,000 residents. 17% of the population is below the poverty rate.
It is also interesting to note that as of February of this year (2016), there were 779 registered sex offenders living in Pensacola or one sex offender to every 67 residents.
However, Pensacola is far from having the highest crime rate in the Sunshine State. A small town called Mangonia Park has the highest crime index in Florida. Mangonia is considered to be in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area.