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It almost seems as obvious as saying that Florida is sunny, or that it has a lot of oranges, but a new study confirms that we live in the fourth most corrupt state in the union.
University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Illinois Institute of Government and Public Affairs have found that we’re the fourth most corrupt state based on the number of convictions of public officials over the past 25 years. Meanwhile, South Florida is the fifth most corrupt metro area in the nation, and is responsible for the majority of corruption in the state.
Between 1976 and 2010, Florida has had a total 1762 federal public corruption convictions. That works out to about 49 each and ever year. Though, Florida is a pretty big state, and when you rank the states based on convictions per capita we’re only eighth. That’s still top ten, though.
Unsurprisingly, much of the corruption emanates in South Florida. The Southern District of Florida, which includes Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, makes up 55 percent of those convictions in the past 25 years. That’s 970 total, and makes us the fifth most corrupt metro area in America.
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Of those convictions, 404 came between 2000-2009. That’s a slight drop from the 437 in the ’90s, but if the study only took into account convictions in the new millennium we’d be second of the list.
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