The City of Summerville is still ranked as one of the “safest cities” in the State of Georgia, according to the 2020 “Safewise 50 Safest Cities” ranking, but has slipped from the second safest city according to the ranking to fifth place.

Safewise is an organization that compiles statistics, conducts research and tests home safety systems – according to their website.

Safewise researchers say, “Georgia’s violent crime rate is lower than the national rate at 3.3 incidents per 1,000 versus 3.7 nationwide. But the state doesn’t fare as well in regard to property crime. Georgia saw 25.7 incidents per 1,000 in 2018, almost four points higher than the national rate of 22.0.”

Property crime is the reason Summerville has slipped in the ranking.  Safewise researchers said, “Summerville moved from second place last year to fifth this year despite having the lowest violent crime rate at zero incidents per 1,000 and zero violent crimes reported. The city’s property crime rate of 10.3 incidents per 1,000 caused the city to fall in the rankings.”

An important thing to remember is that the Safewise rankings are based on a population threshold that leaves out Chattooga County’s other three municipalities, The Town of Trion, The City of Menlo and The Town of Lyerly.  Also, the Safewise rankings are based on information voluntarily submitted to the FBI by municipal law enforcement agencies.  Cities or towns without local police departments, such as Menlo and Lyerly, wouldn’t be included in the rankings even if they met the population threshold.

Also, it should be pointed out that the statistics used by Safewise are only for crimes committed inside the City Limits of Summerville – they do not include county-wide statistics for Chattooga County.