Image by Flickr user subsircle

The southern and rural part of Charleston County has been shocked by an upswing in crime and burglaries, even more perplexing is why and where the crime surge has come from.

The Post and Courier did a bit of looking and has a nice piece on the mater; read it here.

The area's close proximity to Walterboro (which has had a much more troubling upswing in crime) was suggested as a possible factor, and I'll go out on a limb and say that with rural areas being the first to feel the bite of a down economy, it's not too shocking that there's when you'd see a big upswing in crime.