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Even in the novel, "Cold Mountain", Spartanburg was described as being a rough town..year, 1862. The population of my town in 1960 was 44,600. There is no annexation, the population outside the limits, but within, say, 3 miles is probably greater than the population within the city.
Funny you should say that... I went to school in Charleston and had a job at one of the many historic houses there. One day I pulled out the transcripts from one of the former occupants' letters. The matriarch of the family, along with her daughter, lived in Greenville during the Civil War because it was safer than Charleston at that time. While on their trip, they spent the night in Spartanburg, whereupon the mother remarked that it was "a poor town filled with blackguards and ruffians." I actually laughed out loud.
Funnily enough, since most crimes reported are property crime/theft/etc and if you sort by that rate, Myrtle Beach comes up as #1 in the nation, while Spartanburg drops to an much better #20 in the nation.
I fully expect someone in Myrtle Beach to sue their police department for reporting falsified numbers to the FBI.
I understand that if you are trying to make one of these kinds of lists you have to use the statistics that you have but they still have to viewed in context.
Part of the context for SC is that the annexation rules create unfair comparisons. In states with easy annexation the cities will contain more lower-crime suburbs that buffer the crime rates of the higher crime zones when added into the city totals.
Another major part of the context is that everyone does not report crimes with the same "enthusiasm." That includes a wide range of motives. In a true high crime area the police may discourage reporting lesser crimes because they have enough problems with the bigger stuff. Or the victims may not bother because they don't think it will do any good.
Another major part of the context is that everyone does not report crimes with the same "enthusiasm." That includes a wide range of motives. In a true high crime area the police may discourage reporting lesser crimes because they have enough problems with the bigger stuff. Or the victims may not bother because they don't think it will do any good.
I think there will be pressure on the Spartanburg LE to start reporting to the same level as everyone else. Ultimately, the public will suffer because less information will be available.
I'm sure annexing and good crime reporting is a blight to every other city near the top of the most dangerous category. I'm sure places that have no crime and no annexing are up in arms for not being on the "safest place for the last 30 years" chart. :-)
Independently verify this by going to the FBI site and seeing for yourself: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr..._city_2011.xls This FBI table shows the crimes reported by city agencies (Spartanburg Police is listed, 657 crimes),
Note that only 1 violent crime was recorded for USC, Upstate, so for all intents and purposes, our findings are arrived at simply by the crimes reported to the FBI by the Spartanburg Police, and the population of Spartanburg.
if anyone is telling you that we are collecting metropolitan crime numbers, and using only the city population to inflate the crime rate, they are incorrect.
I'd point out here that USC Upstate is not in the city of Spartanburg, though it is in Spartanburg County. Including that single incident in your numbers makes the last quoted sentence a lie, as at least one data point was collected from the metropolitan area and not the city limits.
Clearly you don't understand the difference between RATE and VOLUME. Obviously your biased view of Compton is very accurately based off of that nappy rap music your kids listen to. But, I got bored and decided to verify the FBI links poorly formatted above.
All states, filtering by cities > 25k pop. Violent Crime Rate = Spartanburg = #11 in the nation, Myrtle Beach = #19.
If you don't believe the population = 37,444, then neither does google, the US Census Bureau or Wikipedia (they are all wrong obviously)
Now if you want to know what the most "violent" cities are by actual # of crimes, all the usual cities pop up - New York, Houston, Detroit. But sadly, your Compton is #123 in # of violent crimes, #61 in violent crime rate.
Moderator cut: personal
TL;DR: Don't leave your garage door open overnight in Spartanburg.
Sorry if all those tables are included in this reply.
A quick note about Myrtle Beach, a popular resort city. The population listed is the PERMANENT population. Its average daily population is 105,000 or nearly THREE times its permanent population. Think Orlando, Florida. What would its crime rate be if you included all the employees and tourists in its population when you calculated its crime rate? Much, much lower.
As for Spartanburg, the argument that a large number of people go into the city for good and bad is a valid point. There are people that drive 10 to 15 miles just to get into the city to shop, and that might be just to get to a full sized grocery store for what people in a denser populated area might only need to go less than 2 miles. As Willie Sutton reportedly answered when asked why he robbed banks, "...because that's where the money is." It is awfully hard to commit crime in a rural area unless you want to steal chickens.
As you might recall the Spartanburg Sheriff caught some flak last year for recommending that citizens get a gun because quite frankly it could take over 10 minutes for a deputy to respond to a 911 call. Good advice for anyone. Remember, law enforcement (and for that matter the fire department) doesn't PREVENT something from happening, they RESPOND to something that has already happened.
Last edited by BlueCat57; 03-26-2014 at 08:52 AM..
Reason: Added information about Spartanburg.
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