Safest Cities in South Carolina – 2021

Last Updated on December 27, 2020

With per capita violent and property crime rates above national levels according to the latest FBI crime data, South Carolina cannot claim to be one of the safest cities in the country. Nevertheless, the Palmetto State is home to plenty of safe communities boasting low crime levels and well-staffed police forces.

Crime rate per 1,000

Law enforcement per 1,000

Aiken tops the list of South Carolina’s safest cities. Despite a higher-than-national average violent crime rate, the city, which was named “The Best Small Town of the South” by Southern Living, makes up for it with a very low property crime rate of 8.26 per 1,000 and a high ratio of law enforcement to residents of 3.82 per 1,000.

The second safest city in South Carolina is Blufftown, a fast-growing Lowcountry community of 22.5K in Beaufort County. Blufftown excels in many areas, and safety is one of them: the city’s 2.21 per 1,000 violent crime rate is just 45% of the statewide rate.

Mount Pleasant is 3rd in the ranking of South Carolina’s safest cities. The large Charleston County community earned some of the lowest crime rates in the state, despite a large population of nearly 90,000.

4th in the ranking is Fort Mill, a suburb of Charlotte with the perfect balance of low crime rates and a law enforcement-to-residents ratio above 3 per 1,000. Fort Mill is followed by Port Royal (#5), a city on Port Royal Island that boasts the lowest violent crime rate of any city in South Carolina’s top 5.

South Carolina’s Safest Cities

SC	City	Population	Violent crime	Property crime	Law enforcement employees	Total crimes	Crime rate per 1,000	Violent crimes per 1,000	Property crimes per 1,000	Law enforcement per 1,000
1	Aiken	30881	120	255	118	375	12.14	3.89	8.26	3.82
2	Bluffton	22578	50	252	52	302	13.38	2.21	11.16	2.30
3	Mount Pleasant	89733	138	1221	183	1359	15.14	1.54	13.61	2.04
4	Fort Mill	18618	31	328	56	359	19.28	1.67	17.62	3.01
5	Port Royal	13227	16	198	24	214	16.18	1.21	14.97	1.81
6	Mauldin	25418	42	439	63	481	18.92	1.65	17.27	2.48
7	Hanahan	26060	60	346	42	406	15.58	2.30	13.28	1.61
8	Charleston	137092	415	2848	514	3263	23.80	3.03	20.77	3.75
9	Tega Cay	10763	7	219	28	226	21.00	0.65	20.35	2.60
10	Goose Creek	43545	105	955	93	1060	24.34	2.41	21.93	2.14
11	Lexington	21680	79	662	60	741	34.18	3.64	30.54	2.77
12	North Augusta	23161	43	893	89	936	40.41	1.86	38.56	3.84
13	Simpsonville	22641	41	694	52	735	32.46	1.81	30.65	2.30
14	North Myrtle Beach	16688	105	975	150	1080	64.72	6.29	58.43	8.99
15	Summerville	51565	140	1740	133	1880	36.46	2.72	33.74	2.58
16	Cayce	14238	112	661	82	773	54.29	7.87	46.43	5.76
17	Beaufort	13920	81	581	57	662	47.56	5.82	41.74	4.09
18	Greenville	69608	368	2810	244	3178	45.66	5.29	40.37	3.51
19	Moncks Corner	11484	68	409	33	477	41.54	5.92	35.61	2.87
20	Greer	31722	134	1144	79	1278	40.29	4.22	36.06	2.49
21	Rock Hill	74049	361	2794	192	3155	42.61	4.88	37.73	2.59
22	Orangeburg	12820	170	750	91	920	71.76	13.26	58.50	7.10
23	Irmo	12413	64	447	27	511	41.17	5.16	36.01	2.18
24	Conway	24784	141	960	59	1101	44.42	5.69	38.73	2.38
25	Sumter	39898	366	1873	149	2239	56.12	9.17	46.94	3.73
26	Columbia	133540	986	6753	454	7739	57.95	7.38	50.57	3.40
27	Newberry	10293	91	457	28	548	53.24	8.84	44.40	2.72
28	North Charleston	112840	1039	6567	389	7606	67.41	9.21	58.20	3.45
29	Myrtle Beach	33687	473	3553	326	4026	119.51	14.04	105.47	9.68
30	Easley	21203	105	1254	57	1359	64.09	4.95	59.14	2.69
31	Forest Acres	10375	50	654	31	704	67.86	4.82	63.04	2.99
32	Gaffney	12816	104	908	45	1012	78.96	8.11	70.85	3.51
33	West Columbia	17368	181	1292	60	1473	84.81	10.42	74.39	3.45
34	Florence	37819	362	2462	101	2824	74.67	9.57	65.10	2.67
35	Greenwood	23265	392	1594	57	1986	85.36	16.85	68.51	2.45

Methodology

To identify the safest cities, we reviewed the most recent FBI Uniform Crime Report statistics. We eliminated any cities that failed to submit a complete crime report to the FBI and cities with populations under 10,000. This left 3,381 cities (out of a total of 9,251).

There are two broad classifications of crimes: violent crimes and non-violent crimes. According to the FBI, “Violent crime is composed of four offenses: murder and non-negligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Violent crimes are defined in the UCR Program as those offenses that involve force or threat of force. Property crime includes the offenses of burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. The object of the theft-type offenses is the taking of money or property, but there is no force or threat of force against the victims. ”

We computed the total number of crimes reported by each city by adding violent crimes and property crimes. We then created a crime rate as the number of crimes per 1,000 population. Then we transformed the total crime rate variable so that the skewness was reduced and normalized.

Data from 2,831 law enforcement agencies was then collected to determine police adequacy (TotalCrimes / Number of police employees). We consider that the smaller the police adequacy statistic is, the safer the city is. This variable was also transformed and normalized.

Finally, the two variables were combined to create a safety score for each city.

Safest Cities in South Carolina – 2021

South Carolina’s Safest Cities

Methodology

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