lowest number of homicides<\/a>\u00a0in nearly 60 years. Youth crime is also down, according to the city’s police deparatment.<\/p>\nWhat You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Violent crime is down in St. Petersburg, according to the city’s police department
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St. Pete had the lowest number of homicides in nearly 60 years
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Youth crime is also down, the police chief said, thanks to city programs
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A new Young Influencer Felony Prevention Program starts in March<\/p>\n
St. Petersburg Police Chief Anthony Holloway said that\u2019s in part because of city programs keeping kids out of trouble, and another new program is launching soon.<\/p>\n
Charles Price is starting the\u00a0Young Influencer Felony Prevention Program next month. It\u2019s a subject that hits close to home.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got my first arrest at 12. Assault and battery. At 15, I had an armed robbery. At age 24, I went to prison,\u201d said Price, who is the founder and president of Felons Ain\u2019t Failures.<\/p>\n
Price started a podcast geared toward felons to foster community. That community will help facilitate the new program.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ll be able to tell the kids: this is not a life you want to live. It\u2019s not a fun life. It\u2019s not what TV makes it look like. It\u2019s rough, it\u2019s lonely, and mentally it does a lot to you,\u201d Price said.<\/p>\n
The Young Influencers Felony Prevention Program will feature four different projects over ten months. With lessons focusing on self-discipline, goal setting and conflict resolution.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey see guys out here selling drugs, it looks cool, they have nice cars, they have women around them and so we\u2019re trying to turn their minds into something different,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
While this program will focus on felony prevention, St. Petersburg\u2019s \u201cForward Together\u201d program helps young felons get back on track by addressing the root cause.<\/p>\n
Holloway said 60% of participants are not re-offending.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re getting on the front of it and not on the back end of it, because people make mistakes, but how do you address it after a mistake? So I think by us staying in front of it when a child does something wrong, that we\u2019re addressing it right away,\u201d Holloway said.<\/p>\n
New data shows that violent crime is down by 16% across St. Pete.<\/p>\n
Homicides, robberies and auto thefts were down from 2024 and are well below the five-year average.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we tend to see is that people are starting to really talk to each other instead of just using a gun and finding a way of solution or using a knife or something like that,\u201d Holloway said.<\/p>\n
Holloway said police\u00a0will continue to build trust with the community to keep the downward trend in motion. Price hopes that his prevention program will have the same effect.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe with the mental, the physical, the group sessions and conversation, and then the professional readiness, that can keep a child from making a bad decision to go down the wrong path,\u201d Price said.<\/p>\n
The new program will kick off at the Thomas \u201cJet\u201d Jackson Recreation Center on March 4 for registered participants.<\/p>\n
Crime is also dropping on the other side of the bay.<\/p>\n
According to the Hillsborough County Sheriff\u2019s Office, violent crime was down by nearly 14%<\/a>\u00a0and homicides fell by 55% from 2024 to 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014\u00a0New data shows violent crime was down in 2025 in the Tampa Bay area. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[2967,4995,115,596,277,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,6390,1374],"class_list":{"0":"post-165071","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-app-public-safety","9":"tag-crime-safety","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-pinellas-county","12":"tag-public-safety","13":"tag-st-pete","14":"tag-st-pete-headlines","15":"tag-st-pete-news","16":"tag-st-petersburg","17":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","18":"tag-st-petersburg-news","19":"tag-tampa","20":"tag-topic-latest-public-safety-crime-stories","21":"tag-tyler-oneill"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}