Youthful offenders arrested for half of county’s crimes, stats show

One day after two shootings, including a drive-by in a Conway-area mobile home park, were reported in Horry County, members of the Horry County Subcommittee on Violence met to discuss crime statistics.

The figures revealed an alarming trend: nearly half of the crimes committed in the county that led to arrests were perpetrated by youthful offenders.

"I really wasn’t expecting the numbers to be what they are," said Olaf Jonasson, a crime analyst with the Horry County Police Department. "I’m not a road officer so I don’t know exactly what goes on out there all the time, but I was surprised at how high the numbers were of the youth (offenders)."

Jonasson pulled the Horry County police numbers for violent crimes that led to arrests, breaking down the totals to show how many of the arrests were of perpetrators age 25 and younger. The statistics showed 14 cases of murder and non-negligent manslaughter in 2011. Ten of the 14 cases (71 percent) involved youthful offenders.

The 2011 statistics also showed 31 cases of rape in which 14 youths were arrested; three crimes of sodomy in which two youths were arrested; 293 aggravated assaults with 111 youthful offenders; 364 burglaries or break-ins that involved 214 youth arrests; 423 drug violations that led to the arrests of 207 youths; and 761 disorderly conduct cases, involving the arrests of 318 youths.

The percentage of all of the cases involving youthful offender arrests totaled 46 percent in 2011.

The total percentage was the same in 2015, with one notable difference. The criminal cases that led to arrests were down in every category, but one.

Drug violations had climbed to 635 cases with more than half of them (51 percent) involving youthful offenders up from 49 percent in 2011. And a rise in drug cases often spells bad news for crime rates.

At a packed community meeting on the scourge of heroin Tuesday night, Myrtle Beach police noted thousands of arrests for a variety of crimes from shoplifting to prostitution that have been fueled by drugs in the past year. County officers face the same problems – with a smaller staff.

"We need to face facts here. We need to step up," said Horry County Councilman Bill Howard, arguing that a lack of manpower on police forces should not be used as an excuse for limited patrols to deter crime.

The Horry County police force is charged to patrol and protect one of the largest counties east of the Mississippi River at 1,225 square miles. The department, however, has fewer officers than the force at the Myrtle Beach Police Department that covers 23 square miles.

"I think we’re here to try to understand what we as a group can do to remedy that situation," Capt. Bob Carr of the Horry County Police Department said of the crime that plagues the county.

Jonasson told the board he is working on a map that will show the hot spots for crimes, pulling up a preliminary county map with dots clustered around areas like Conway and Socastee.

Committee spokesman George Payton, who pastors St. Elizabeth Missionary Baptist Church in Aynor, asked Jonasson to add population densities to the map to help them compare the hot spots to potential density factors.

"We can make some projections from those kinds of statistics," Payton said.

Committee members also scanned through pie charts that compared crime statistics in Horry County to other counties in North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida.

In 2012, Horry County had a higher murder rate (logging 15 homicides that year) than its peer counties, Georgetown, Brunswick in North Carolina and Orange in Florida.

It also ranked higher in comparison that year than the other counties for crimes of rape. But Orange County ranked higher than Horry County for crimes of aggravated assault and robbery. And Horry County came in last compared to the other counties for the rate of burglaries that year.

Committee members will continue to develop and analyze more statistics in the coming weeks.

"I think y’all are going in the right direction. This is very important, probably the most important thing in the county. This is our future," Howard said. "These kids are our future."

"We’re here to learn what all of us here can do to make a difference," Carr added.

Committee members will meet for a 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. workshop on Aug. 30 to dig deeper into the crime analysis and county comparisons in an effort to find Horry County’s "strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats." In the "SWOT" meeting, board members will also look at what other like-counties are doing to curb violence – another step towards a final goal in a long process aimed at tackling crime and saving the county’s youth from its perilous grip.

"Better eyes, less crime," said committee chairman and Horry County Councilman Jimmy Washington. "When there’s drugs, there’s gangs. When there’s gangs, there’s money and where there’s money, there’s guns. So it’s going to take everybody working together to get this done."

This story was originally published August 17, 2016 at 7:57 PM with the headline "Youthful offenders arrested for half of county’s crimes, stats show."