More on the Myrtle Beach crime rate
David Wren at the Sun News published an article today debunking the claims of local business and law enforcement that the Horry County area's high crime rate is inaccurate because tourists who commit crimes are not taken into account:
Most of the people arrested for committing violent crimes in Horry County live along the Grand Strand, according to an analysis of this year's booking reports at J. Reuben Long Detention Center in Conway.Those reports appear to undermine statements made last week by local business and law enforcement officials, who are critical of a new CQ Press study that ranks the Myrtle Beach metro area - which includes all of Horry County - as the 14th-most-dangerous place in the United States.
Local officials say the CQ Press report is skewed because it does not take into account about 14 million tourists who visit Horry County each year.
Wren says that a review of 14,000 booking reports shows that 83% of persons charged with violent crimes, including robbery, aggravated assaults, rape and murder, are locals. Out of 671 bookings for serious violent crimes, 551 had home addresses in Horry and Georgetown Counties. He also points out that the Myrtle Beach metro area has more than double the crime rate of the New York metro area, which has 44 million tourists a year. Also,
The Atlantic City, N.J., metro area has a permanent population roughly the same size as Horry County's and claims 37 million annual visitors. That metro area had 1,594 reported incidents of violent crime last year for a rate of 589.5 crimes per 100,000 residents.The Myrtle Beach metro area's violent crime rate also is higher than tourism meccas Las Vegas and Orlando, Fla., both of which attract about three times as many annual visitors as Horry County.
Myrtle Beach's crime rate, according to the FBI, is 948.1 incidents per 100,000 residents. Of course local business leaders and law enforcement want to make it look better than it is - local business leaders are afraid that tourists will stay away if they hear about the stats and fear that they might get robbed or killed while here on vacation, and law enforcement is afraid that we will think they aren't doing a good enough job.
