Local crime

Mississippi is a nice, friendly place to live - The Hospitality State. Just ask any Mississippian and they’ll tell you the same – and if you don’t believe us, we’ll beat you up!

Check out the following crime stats for Mississippi from www.disastercenter.com.

In the year 2000 Mississippi had an estimated population of 2,844,658 which ranked the state 31st in population. For that year the State of Mississippi had a total Crime Index of 4,004.4 reported incidents per 100,000 people. This ranked the state as having the 27th highest total Crime Index. For Violent Crime Mississippi had a reported incident rate of 360.9 per 100,000 people. This ranked the state as having the 27th highest occurrence for Violent Crime among the states. For crimes against Property, the state had a reported incident rate of 3,643.5 per 100,000 people, which ranked as the state 26th highest. Also in the year 2000 Mississippi had 9.0 Murders per 100,000 people, ranking the state as having the 2nd highest rate for Murder. Mississippi’s 33.3 reported Forced Rapes per 100,000 people, ranked the state 23rd highest. For Robbery, per 100,000 people, Mississippi’s rate was 128.2 which ranked the state as having the 21st highest for Robbery. The state also had 317.2 Aggravated Assaults for every 100,000 people, which indexed the state as having the 18th highest position for this crime among the states. For every 100,000 people there were 906.9 Burglaries, which ranks Mississippi as having the 10th highest standing among the states. Larceny - Theft were reported 2,864.8 times per hundred thousand people in Mississippi which standing is the 15th highest among the states. Vehicle Theft occurred 288.0 times per 100,000 people, which fixed the state as having the 32nd highest for vehicle…

For most of the types of crime listed above we are pretty much toward the middle of the US states rankings, but second highest murder rate in the country! Who would have guessed it? I’ve lived here all my life and I wouldn’t have guessed it by a long shot. But, that’s just another example of people being bad statisticians by nature. If you zoom in on Pike county using the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting program, you find that McComb and the surrounding area has approximately one murder per year and one rape per year.

I certainly don’t want to be a fearmonger here, but us local guys need to watch out. It may behoove us to get a little training in self-defense and conflict resolution. Hmmm. Sounds like aikido and judo to me…