South Carolina ee Law Enforcement Division aa 20221-138 HB Meta; Core rans 77-9000 Mark A, biel, Chief : Contact: Thom Berry Office: (803) 896-7136 After Hours: (803) 737-9000 therry@sled.se.gov FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 28, 2017 ;OUTH CAROLINA VIOLENT AND PROPERTY CRIME RATES DROP IN 2014, 2015 ‘The rates of overall violent and property crimes in South Carolina dropped in 201, 2014 when compared to their previous years according to reports released today by the S. Enforcement Division. and Law ‘The Uniform Crime Reports for 2015 and 2014 showed the rate of violent crimes decreased 0.4 percent in 2015 compared to 2014 while the rate of property crimes dropped 4.6 percent for the same time period. ‘The rate of violent crime in the state decreased two percent in 2014 compared to 2013 and the rate of property crime was down 5.2 percent for the same time period. ‘Categories such as murder and nonneg!igent homicide along with sexual battery did show increases in the number of occurrences yet the rates were lower due to the increase in the state’s population as the rates are based on crimes per 10,000 residents,” said SLED Chief Mark Keel. “Decreases in categories such as burglary and assaults involving domestic relationships are ‘encouraging but what is troubling is the statistics for the number of law enforcement officers killed or assaulted increased substantially by over 20 percent in 2015 over previous years.” Keel said figures used in the report came from sheriff's departments and police departments statewide. The rates in the annual report are crimes per 10,000 inhabitants. The 2013 report used a new incident-based reporting system in which in-depth data on every criminal offense from an incident is recorded. Previous reports used the most serious offense in an incident “Our great thanks to the sheriffS, chiefs of police, their officers and staff who protect our communities and contribute the data for this report,” he said. “I want to commend our colleagues at the state Department of Public Safety for assisting SLED in completing this report.” The full Crime in South Carolina 2014 end 2015 reports are on SLED's website at www sled se.gov. ai BNR 0381 CALEA IneCRIME IN SOUTH CAROLINA, 2014 & 2015 Executive Summary ‘The South Carolina Incident-Based Reporting System (SCIBRS) collects in-depth information on criminal incidents from local law enforcement agencies throughout the state. These reporting agencies submit monthly files with coded information on each criminal incident that occurs within their jurisdictions, These data are validated, corrected as needed and stored at SLED. From 2013 to 2014, the rate of Violent Crime (i.e., the number of violent crimes reported for every 10,000 residents) decreased 2 percent, while the rate of Property Crime decreased by 5.2 percent, largely driven by a steep decline in reported burglaries. The rate of domestic assaults decreased by 1.1 percent from 2013 to 2014. The number of law enforcement officers assaulted also decreased in the same time period by 29.7 percent. From 2014 to 2015, the rate of Violent Crime decreased by 0.4 percent, despite more violent crimes being reported. While there was an increase in crimes reported in this category, because of an even larger increase in the state's population, the number of violent crimes committed for every 10,000 people in 2015 actually decreased from the previous year, In this same time period, the rate of Property Crime continued to decrease by 4.6 percent, again led by another decline in reported burglaries. The rate of domestic assaults decreased by 2 percent from the previous year. ‘The number of law enforcement officers assaulted inereased by 22.4 percent from 2014 to 2015. ‘The SCIBRS unit at SLED compiles the collected information from the state’s local law enforcement agencies to create the Crime in South Carolina report. Beginning with the 2013 edition, Crime in South Carolina has featured exclusively Incident-Based Reporting to count crimes so that every crime that is reported by local agencies is included in the crime totals. This differs from the FBI-produced Crime in the United States which only counts the single most serious offense in an incident. Crime in South Carolina also includes updates and corrections reported by local agencies afier the FBI’s publication cutoff in early-Spring