Murders in SC reach highest point in more than two decades, statewide report shows
The number of murders in South Carolina reached a 25 year high in 2018, an increase which is reflected in other violent crimes, a new study from a statewide police agency shows.
At the same time, property crime is down.
The amount of murders, sexual batteries, and aggravated assaults all increased from 2017 to 2018, a compilation of statewide crime data by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division reports. However, a downward turn in robberies gave the state a slight dip in its overall violent crime rate.
The study was compiled from crime reports by police agencies across the state and released Friday.
South Carolina murders peaked in the last two and a half decades with 393 people murdered in 2018, according to the report. Since SLED began compiling the data almost 30 years ago, the state hasn’t seen that many murders since 1993 when 400 people were killed.
From 1993 until 2013 murders had gone down, bottoming that final year when 293 people were killed. Since 2013, murders have continued to rise.
Sexual battery and aggravated assault also climbed to their highest amount in years.
Last year, 2,634 sexual batteries, commonly called rape, happened. That’s the highest amount since 2002. With 18,502 in 2018, aggravated assaults, meaning assaults that caused great bodily injury or could’ve caused great bodily injury or death, hit the highest amount since 2012.
However, with a nearly 8 percent decrease from 2017 to 2018 in robberies, also defined as a violent crime, the overall violent crime rate in South Carolina went slightly down.
While the number of a crime tells how many times a certain crime occurred, the crime rate considers population in context of crime frequency.
The study also notes that because of changing methods of compiling crime data since 1991, comparisons of 2018 data with anything before 2013 could be misconstrued.
Richland County had the highest number of violent crimes of all the counties in South Carolina and ranked in the top 10 for the highest rate of violent crime. Neighboring Lexington County was in the lower 10 percent of the violent crime rate, meaning it had less violent crime than the majority of counties. Dillon County had the highest violent crime rate in the entire state.
“I am pleased to see a steady decline in the number of property crimes and that the overall violent crime rate dropped,” said SLED Chief Mark Keel. “While these statistics are encouraging, I am deeply troubled by the increasing number of murders, domestic violence incidents and the number of law enforcement officers assaulted in our state.”
Property crimes like breaking-and-entering, larceny and arson all decreased in number and rate from 2017 to 2018 with breaking-and-entering reaching its lowest amount since SLED has tracked the crime data.
Motor vehicle thefts went up as they have for the last five years.
Crimes against law enforcement officers in the line of duty were up in every type of offense measured by SLED. Part of the increase is because of a gunman opening fire against police in Florence County in October 2018, an attack in which seven officers were shot, two of whom died.
In January, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott announced that the county reached a decade high with murders in 2018.
This story was originally published November 1, 2019 at 12:47 PM.