Safety
Crime data helps sheriff make case for pay raises
Data published last week by the Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office confirms what residents and local officials know from experience: the off-season no longer exists.
“We used to lock it up Labor Day to Easter,” Sheriff Carter Weaver said. “There is no lag period anymore.”
The report arrives as Georgetown County Council starts work on its new budget. The council approved funds for eight new patrol deputies in 2023 and pay raises for law enforcement last year.
“There’s a fear that not using an information tool such as this to ensure that your public safety resources are in line with other counties and the state will put us back to where we were two years ago with a mass exodus of public safety employees,” Weaver said.
There sheriff’s office received 41,314 calls for service last year, according to the report, a decrease of 5.7 percent from 2023.
But the number of traffic stops increased by 13.2 percent to 13,980.
“We have increased traffic stops exponentially since I became sheriff,” Weaver said.
The report shows that the volume of calls is spread fairly evenly over the year.
The peak volume was in September (4,143) and the lull was in April (2,774). There were as many calls in January as there were in July, both around 3,500.
Traffic stops followed a similar pattern. September’s peak was nearly twice the number of stops made in June. There were more stops in January than in July.
The number of calls for service that led to deputies filing incident reports peaks in August, a trend that follows the peak tourist season.
The six months from April through September account for 60 percent of the 5,276 reported incidents.
The data also shows that calls for service are equally distributed around the county. Waccamaw Neck, which has 43 percent of the year-round population, accounts for 44 percent of the calls.
“Some didn’t believe that,” Weaver said. “The county is equally divided in the response that is needed.”
The report also cites state data showing the county had the second highest drop in property crime and the fifth highest drop in violent crime.
The report can be found online at gcsheriff.org.
