Crime & Safety in Beaufort
Beaufort's crime data carries a real, genuinely confusing internal tension worth stating plainly: city-proper figures cite a D- grade and bottom-decile safety percentile, while the same broad source's own neighborhood-level analysis and a separate county-wide figure both read meaningfully more favorable.
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Learn moreA real, disclosed internal inconsistency -- not smoothed over
Beaufort's city-proper crime rate is cited at 48.06 per 1,000 residents, placing it in just the 11th percentile for safety with a D- grade -- yet the same broad source separately states 100% of its own analyzed neighborhoods earn an A or B safety grade (the "Safe" tier), while also citing a city-wide overall crime grade of C in that same discussion. These figures do not cleanly reconcile, and are disclosed here as a real, unresolved tension rather than picked from one and presented as settled.
Beaufort COUNTY reads meaningfully more favorable than the city-proper figure
Beaufort County's broader crime rate is cited at 33.82 per 1,000 -- described as safer than the South Carolina state average and roughly on par with the national average, a real, disclosed gap between city-proper statistics and the county-wide figure that includes lower-crime areas like Bluffton and the barrier islands.
No specific area named as unsafe
Cat Island is named as the safest specifically analyzed neighborhood (Grade A) by the sourcing used here; residents generally consider the west part of the city the safest. As with every market in this dataset, no specific neighborhood is named as unsafe here, per site policy.
Key takeaways
- Beaufort city-proper crime data cites a D- grade and 11th-percentile safety, yet the same source separately notes 100% of its analyzed neighborhoods earn A/B grades -- a real, disclosed, unresolved inconsistency.
- Beaufort COUNTY's broader crime rate (33.82 per 1,000) reads meaningfully more favorable than the city-proper figure -- safer than the SC average, roughly on par with the national average.
- Cat Island is named as the safest specifically analyzed neighborhood; no area is named as unsafe, per site policy.
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