SPARTANBURG, SC (WSPA) – Neighborhood Scout recently ranked Spartanburg in the top 20 most dangerous cities in the United States.
The company used FBI data and U.S. Census Bureau data to determine the number of violent crimes – which it classifies as homicide, rape, armed robbery and assault – per 1,000 people in the city. Spartanburg ranked 20 on the list, averaging 15.2 violent crimes per 1,000 residents.
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“The information that they put out is correct,” Spartanburg Police Department Major Art Littlejohn said, “but you have to understand how that information is brought about.”
According to Littlejohn, the city’s population booms during the daytime as people commute in for work or pass through along the interstate.
The added population, he said, does not contribute to the Census Bureau’s data (the denominator in the equation used by Neighborhood Scout); however, the crimes visitors commit does contribute to the FBI’s data (the numerator in the equation used by Neighborhood Scout).
Littlejohn used larcenies – one of the crimes on the rise in the city – as an example.
“When we look at the arrests we have made for larcenies,” he said, “more than half of the percentage of people who are arrested for larcenies don’t live in our city.”
He said the system used by Neighborhood Scout, while mathematically correct, does not accurately convey the full story of Spartanburg’s crime problem.
“If you really look at our city, our city is growing,” he said. “People are moving here. If those numbers were a concern, we wouldn’t have people moving here the way they are.”
Littlejohn added that businesses’ rapid expansion into Spartanburg County are also indicative of a lower overall crime problem than conveyed by the Neighborhood Scout report.
