Rankings

Study Reveals South Carolina has the 3rd Highest Recorded Crime Rate in the US

Published

1 year ago

September 14, 2023

California based criminal defense law firm Simmrin Law Group found that South Carolina has the third highest recorded crime rate in the US.

The team analyzed the reported number of crime incidents between 2019 – 2021 for 47 states for which data was available and compared this with state population size to determine the average number of incidents per 100,000 people.

Arkansas takes the top spot with an average of 6,207 incidents per 100,000 people between 2019 – 2021. It had a total of 562,385 reported incidents across these three years, resulting in the highest crime rate due to its population size of just over three million people.

Tennessee ranked second with an average of 6,005 incidents per 100,000 people. It had a total of 1,234,977 incidents between 2019 – 2021, though the number of reported incidents has notably decreased year on year, falling from 6,404 incidents per 100,000 people in 2019 to a rate of 5,699 in 2021.

South Carolina was third with an average of 5,992 incidents per 100,000 people. It had a total of 927,005 reported incidents and experienced a similar decrease in reported incidents between 2019 and 2021.

Rank	State	Incidents per 100,000 people (2021)	Incidents per 100,000 people (2020)	Incidents per 100,000 people (2019)	Average Incidents per 100,000 people
1.	Arkansas	6,089	6,399	6,134	6,207
2.	Tennessee	5,699	5,913	6,404	6,005
3.	South Carolina	5,629	5,990	6,357	5,992
4.	Delaware	5,388	5,135	6,007	5,510
5.	North Dakota	5,508	5,103	5,036	5,216
6.	Colorado	5,834	5,170	4,574	5,192
7.	Washington	4,936	5,120	4,713	4,923
8.	Oregon	4,678	4,704	4,881	4,754
9.	South Dakota	4,370	4,922	4,866	4,719
10.	Utah	4,503	4,482	4,297	4,427