Charleston Has One of Highest Murder Rates in US

Violent crimes, as defined by the Scout,  include murder, forcible rape, armed robbery, and aggravated assault. Data used for this research are 1) the number of violent crimes reported to the FBI to have occurred in each city, and ( 2) the population of each city.

Assembling reports by all law enforcement agencies in a city to generate its data (i.e. police, sheriff, campus, state, etc.), the Scout stated, "

With a population of 51,177, Charleston has a combined rate of violent and property crime that is very high compared to other places of similar population size." In fact, Charleston experiences "one of the higher murder rates in the nation."

The analysis assigned Charleston a 72 crimes per one thousand residents. Of these, 62 crime per one thousand residents falls into property crimes (motor vehicle theft, arson, burglary, and larceny over $50). This breaks down to a one in 16 chance of becoming a property crime victim in Charleston and a a one in 98 chance of becoming a violent crime victim.

 The  violent crime rate for West Virginia is 3.16 per thousand, for the nation, 3.90 per thousand, and for Huntington 7.92 per one thousand, based on the Scout/Census statistics. A Huntington resident's chance of becoming a violent crime victim would be one in 126. Huntington's property crime rate is 73.54 per one thousand residents, the website stated.

In contrast to Charleston, Huntington's crime rate has dropped for the first time in 27 years. Although Mayor Steve Williams has announced a city-wide hiring freeze, he hopes increased code enforcement will help clear out pockets of crime in Fairfield West, the West End and Northcott. As per transition team advice, he hopes that replacing sworn officers with civilians in certain areas will put more uniformed personnel on the beat.