Is South Carolina really this violent? (Sumter, Florence: environment, relocating, income)

[lowcountry]

This is an article from the local TV news.
I mapped it and it is a dead end street not far from the Grand Coastal Mall. Police dont even want to go into places like this. In the past it was totally taken over by criminals.
WPDE ABC TV News Channel 15 Myrtle Beach, Florence SC News (broken link)
I dont know what to think. Our home city up north had more murders per capita than NY, but it was all in the inner cities and it never spread to the suburbs. We could leave our cars unlocked etc.

[scjj]

SC doesn't really have large typical inner cities like you find in some of the northern states though is the difference. The suburb areas here are where the low income minorities have lived long before they developed into typical suburbs. With all the growth and land being snapped up new developments have been built around them and now people are wondering why there is so much high crime in the suburbs. The crime didn't spread to the suburbs, the suburbs came to it. I'll bet that neighborhood in the story above was there looong before the Grand Coastal Mall and development moved in.

[jenn02674]

That is one reason why you have to put any kind of poll or statistic in context. If they are not all reporting consistantly, then they are kind of pointless. My question is, how do you all know that SC reports more accurately than other states? Where is this information coming from? I just don't get it because murder is murder and will get reported as will most other violent crimes. Burgleries and assaults maybe not so much.

I was born and raised and still live in SC and love it here but crime is a problem in the south and should not be sugar coated whether it is domestic, violent, or whatever. Domestic violence affects the innocent as well. The crime rate is probably directly attributed to the education system. SC has several of the best school districts in the country but they also have many of the worst and I personally think that is where the problem lies.

[SCBeaches]

Domestic violence affects the innocent as well. The crime rate is probably directly attributed to the education system. SC has several of the best school districts in the country but they also have many of the worst and I personally think that is where the problem lies.[/quote]


I beg to differ....let's not blame crime on our schools. People's behavior in society comes from the home, the parents, and society in general. As a 24-year veteran teacher in this state (at a wonderful school noted for its strong PTA, advanced-degree, national board certified, and caring and nurturing teachers, and high PACT scores) I have seen first-hand what poor parenting can do to children. I have taught children from homes where they are physically abused, ignored and neglected, sexually abused, emotionally and verbally abused. I have taught children from homes where both parents are on drugs, raids on the home are common occurrence, there is no supervision thus they are allowed to roam the streets late into the night with older teenagers, watch X-rated movies and cable shows, and stay up as late as they want even on school nights. I have also taught children whose parents think their children can do no wrong and just dare the teacher or principal to punish their child for breaking school rules, for hurting other children, and for showing blatant disrespect for authority figures. These parents will go to bat for their child no matter what their child did wrong and even threaten to sue the school for implying their child is anything less than an angel.

Don't get me wrong, I teach many more children who have loving, nurturing, responsible parents who teach their children right from wrong and who expect their children to obey rules and laws and respect authority figures - and who support the teachers in educating their children. These parents meet with the teachers for conferences, attend PTA meetings, volunteer at the school when they can, and hold their children responsible for their actions - good or bad.

The school has the children 7 hours of the day, 5 days a week while the parents have the children the rest of the time. The first 5 years of a child's life (before entering school) is when a child learns how to behave, right from wrong, how to be respectful of others, and that there are consequences for their actions....not to even mention cognitive skills.

Yes, there is crime in this state, but let's not take a cheap shot at the schools in placing blame. These teens and adults who commit crimes had parents long before they had teachers. Enough said.

[clgrimes]

You are so right SCBeaches!!! I applaud you for what you do and the way you so eloquently expressed your opinion above. As I have heard my pastor state so many times, "you never have to teach a child how to do wrong or misbehave, but you have to teach them how to do right and behave"! Why is that? Because every person is born with a "sin nature" into a world that, let's face it, is the devil's playground. A child needs to be taught what is right and disciplined for failure to do what is right (and I'm not talking about abusing your children) early on before he/she ever gets to school. A lot of the problem seems to be that children are brought into this world by people who have no capacity for having children. Two people have casual sex and low and behold a child is conceived not being planned for or wanted and with no capacity to support, love, or nurture the child. Then what happens? You can probably figure that out based on the condition of our country (and world).

My church has a prison ministry and when the prisoners are interviewed and asked about their childhood and growing up, a huge percentage of them talk about not even knowing who their fathers are, having a mother who didn't have the ability to care for them, and so they sought love and attention from somewhere -- the world! So many turn to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain of their past or to cope with the emptiness inside them and you know where that can lead to -- crime! So it's really a viscious cycle. Crime is a symptom and we seem to only want to control the symptom rather than get to the root of the problem. Getting to the root of the problem would involve dealing with morals and values and everybody knows we can't "legislate morality". So our governmental institutions have been designated to deal with the symptoms of fallen people in a fallen world who choose to display the symptom of a deep, deep root of bitterness -- CRIME!

[sheena]

Originally Posted by Stac2007

I happen to think that South Carolina is just very good at reporting crime when it happens. Here in New York high crime brings down the property values and many local law enforcement departments fail to report them. One incident which happened to me was when I was working in banking a few years back. I worked for a bank which had a branch at the Palisades center mall in Clarkstown, Rockland County NY. I showed up for work at 7:30 AM and returned at 6: PM to find my car had been broken into, my dash board damaged and the cd player stolen. The thief used a drill to cut a hole under my lock and pull it out. When I reported it to the Clarkstown police department they did not want to make a report. I had to force them otherwise my insurance company would not pay out a single dime. Later on in the week I had heard as many as 50 cars had been broken into. All which were owned by employees of the various business interests at the Mall. So you see the police refuse to do their jobs because of political pressure.

That's true NY doesn't even report most of the crime, these places seem to report everything.

[sheena]

Originally Posted by lowcountry

This is an article from the local TV news.
I mapped it and it is a dead end street not far from the Grand Coastal Mall. Police dont even want to go into places like this. In the past it was totally taken over by criminals.
WPDE ABC TV News Channel 15 Myrtle Beach, Florence SC News (broken link)
I dont know what to think. Our home city up north had more murders per capita than NY, but it was all in the inner cities and it never spread to the suburbs. We could leave our cars unlocked etc.

Well I can believe it's not far from the Grand Coastal Mall. I popped in over at that Walmart up there on Saturday and I thought I was shopping in downtown Phoenix. I saw lots of shady characters in there. I hope the Costco next store and the Mall is a better atmosphere than that Walmart.

[Akhenaton06]

Originally Posted by jenn02674

That is one reason why you have to put any kind of poll or statistic in context. If they are not all reporting consistantly, then they are kind of pointless. My question is, how do you all know that SC reports more accurately than other states? Where is this information coming from?

When assembling crime statistics based on FBI data, each state is profiled for 1) the actual percentage of MSAs (metropolitan statistical areas) reporting; 2) cities outside of MSAs reporting; and 3) nonmetropolitan counties reporting. SC's figures are 99.9%, 99.6%, and 100%, respectively. Here are some statistics for other states for comparison:

VA: 99.4%, 97.2%, 99.7%
WV: 96.3%, 83.3%, 87.3%
NC: 96.0%, 96.4%, 91.3%
GA: 89.7%, 84.8%, 82.8%
FL: 99.9%, 98.1%, 100%
TN: 100%, 100%, 100%

Interestingly, NJ only reported for their MSAs and not for the other two categories.

In addition, multiple reporting agencies were used for SC (10 in all). In comparison, NC used 5 reporting agences, GA 4, LA 2, FL 7, and VA 4.

[moedog]

NJ only reported their MSAs because the entire state is within MSAs--there are no rural or nonmetropolitan counties (NJ is considered the most urbanized state in the US).

[Akhenaton06]

^Point taken; someone pointed that out to me before.