Why is crime so high in New Bern and Wilmington??

[scjj]

Wilmington has an escalating gang problem. As does Leland and Brunswick County. There is a lot of tension on the streets of downtown Wilmington. Fights broke out after the MLK parade for crying out loud. Wilmington has a pretty high poverty ratio too. Even in the areas where I lived (Ogden) which we considered safe we had the occasional car break-ins or you would hear about a house getting broke into. There was even a lady murdered on Middle Sound Loop Road in her own home not more than a mile from where I lived and I thought my area was as safe as it could get. Never caught who did it either. Just goes to show you never know where it can strike.

If you go to the Star News website you can pull up a map that will show you where all the crime happens and what the offenses and arrests were within the last 30 days. Wait for all the red dots to load. You can see for yourself that the crime is not isolated to one area, it is pretty spread out. Keep in mind that it is for the New Hanover Police Department only, so any areas that are covered by the Sheriff's Department will not show up, like the Ogden area for example.

[Oyster07]

Hi scjj. I live in Ogden off Middle Sound Loop. When did the murder occur???

[scjj]

Oyster07 as I recall it happened right before we moved from Emerald Forest to Middle Point because I remember being concerned that the house it happened at wasn't that far away from the new one we were buying. So that would have been around the summer of 2000. She was brutally beaten and it was said the house was a mess. The house sat for a long time with caution tape around it and was eventually torn down. I have no idea if anything was ever built in it's place. I know the property went up for sale. There was a guy that was doing maintenance work for her that was a suspect at one time but as I recall they never had the evidence to charge him and it became a cold case.

[West_ny]

[SIZE=3]I’ve been reading this forum lately as I may be moving to the Wilmington area shortly. I was just offered a job down there, so am planning on coming done this coming week to look around and get an idea on housing costs and is this a place we’d want to live. Excluding either of those being a negative, most likely we will be moving there. Therefore I read this thread with interest as I don’t know a lot about the area so far just been looking at house prices online and that’s one thing I don’t have a is a good perspective on is locations. I’m kind of leaning towards either Hampstead/Ogden area, or maybe in the city more towards Myrtle Grove.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=3]With regards to the crime, I do agree that there are both good and bad sections and you just have to investigate some before agreeing on an area. As to why it appears there may be a crime problem here besides what has already been pointed out, I’d suggest the following; I originally live in the New York City area, then moved to Rochester NY where I’ve lived for over 30 years Rochester is about 1/20 the size of NYC, and Wilmington is about ¼ the size of Rochester. There is however one thing they all have in common, they and every other city around has a ½ hour news show at 6 and 11. So they need something to fill a half hour, therefore every crime gets reported. In Rochester we usually have somewhere between 35 to 50 murders a year to which everyone of them is reported on TV and in the papers. That’s about equal to a bad couple of weeks in NYC so many don’t get reported. Wilmington being smaller there probably is even less to report, so you have to come up with something to say for ½ hour, so everything gets reported.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=3]I’m not very familiar with the Wilmington area, but I’d guess you could drive from the most expensive exclusive sections of Wilmington to the worst sections in about 10 to 15 minutes. In Rochester, that would take about 20 to 30 minutes, so again it becomes easy for the crime to appear to be right next door. In NYC that same trip would take over an hour, with traffic, the criminals would likely run out of gas before they ever get there, so easier to keep their crime close to home so to speak. Even in some of the expensive areas in NYC, you might find some small crime ridden towns surrounded by wealthy areas, (kind of a reverse oasis) but for the most part to go to the really bad areas, you’d have a long drive.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=3]Just another thought on why it might appear to be a larger problem than it really is. Hopefully I’ll find a good location and something I can afford.[/SIZE]