The Polk County Sheriff’s Office reported that crime in the first six months of the year is down 5.44 percent over the same time period of last year. And while the crime rate in Bartow is up, the 2.3 percent is 12 crimes.

In Bartow in the first six months of this year there were 531 reported crimes, according to the Uniform Crime Report prepared by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. That compares with 519 the year before. By comparison to the last few years, during the first six months of 2011, there were 559 offenses and in 2010 there were 586.