South Florida has been awarded the coveted #1 ranking as the public corruption capital of U.S..
Between 1996 and 2005, a record-setting 576 people were convicted of federal corruption charges in the district that extends from Key West to Sebastian, according to the agency’s most recent annual report.
Actually, the award is a bit of a misnomer — given that it is awarded for the most public officials convicted of corruption, it could easily mean that we’re the leader in dumb and corrupt public officials. Maybe in Chicago or DC they are smarter at covering their tracks. Or maybe we have better prosecutors.
In any case, I would like to go on record as saying that this award is unfair to both of the smart, honest, hard-working public officials in South Florida.
I’m sure that there are at least a couple.
Why is the geographic area of South Florida in the same category as a single city, such as Chicago or Washington, D.C.?
I’m going to guess that they collect statistics based on judicial districts, and that this was for the Southern District of Florida. (US Atty’s offices use the same maps as the courts.) In which case, your point could be well taken. Although the Northern District of Illinois covers Chicagoland, the Southern District of New York excludes a lot of the city. Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island are in the Eastern District!
I don’t know if New York’s 374 is just for the Southern District, or if it sums the Southern and Eastern.
I came across a blog post yesterday (can’t remember where) taking Tancredo to task for referring to Miami as a “third-world.” Given his record the inference was racist but I was struck that my sister who inhabits that nether region had said exactly the same thing about Florida (as a whole) but was referring to the corruption phenomenon.