With 1,247 crimes reported per 100,000 people, Shelby County's crime rate is much lower than the national and state rates and a world away from neighboring Jefferson County, where the rate is 6,346 crimes per 100,000 people, according to "Community Counts: Measuring Progress in our Region," a study released this month. St. Clair County's crime rate, the region's second-lowest at 2,472 crimes per 100,000 people, is still almost double the Shelby rate.

The statistics for violent crime follow a similar pattern.

Shelby County District Attorney Robby Owens immediately offered two reasons for the low crime rate.

Reasons:
"Whether people realize it or not, we have a group of law enforcement officers in the cities and the county who really work together. Most of our crime gets solved, especially violent crime," he said. "We have very few murders, rapes, robberies and arsons that don't get solved.

"And the second factor has to be the median income here. We can't deny the fact our income level is above average," Owens said. "That means our unemployment is lower, which certainly helps with those crime numbers."

Shelby County Chamber of Commerce Director Karen Ream said those statistics mean something to families and businesses considering a move to the county. Ream started researching crime statistics a few years ago when the Chamber started Safety Awareness Awards each year to honor public safety employees.

"Shelby is so much lower than even our sister counties that I wanted to be delicate in the way I said it, but the information was overwhelming," she said. "These are the type of things that attract businesses to a community."

Along with low unemployment and cooperation among law enforcement agencies, Ream credits the people living in Shelby County for the low crime rate.

"People are very proactive, very aware of their surroundings," she said. "You can see it in the neighborhood watch associations and the other ways they stay involved."

Last year, neighbors came together and formed a neighborhood watch association in the Egg and Butter Road community of Columbiana to combat drug activity, said Frieda Abrams, a member of the group and an 18-year resident of the community.

"The people decided to get involved. They decided they were not going to tolerate drug activity," she said.

More than a year later, the efforts have paid off with a drop in suspicious activity and a renewed sense of pride in the neighborhood, with cleanup days and other community events, Abrams said.

Challenges:
As Shelby County continues to grow, so will the challenges of maintaining a low crime rate and prosecuting criminals in a timely fashion, Owens said.

He has a backlog of about 1,200 to 1,300 felony cases awaiting trial, he said. Because the county can accommodate only a few hundred trials each year, many of the nonviolent crime cases will be settled.

"We don't settle the violent stuff, but we are having to back up on some of the other cases," Owens said. "We try to settle them with a reasonable punishment instead of having them sit around waiting for two or three years for a trial. Justice should be swift. We are working harder and harder to make that happen."

Another challenge will be the same one facing every county in Alabama - drugs, Owens said.

"That's the No. 1 problem in any criminal activity anywhere in the state," he said. "Drugs and alcohol abuse account for half of all of the crime we have. Parents have to be diligent about this. When my kids were growing up, they knew from the beginning that I would go through their room. I would find anything they had."

And in Shelby County, many children have extra money to buy illegal substances, he said.

Ream said large shopping complexes planned for the county will be another challenge facing law enforcement. The parking lots could be gathering places.

"Once your shopping malls come in, we will be a little more challenged to keep that low crime rate," she said. "It is very important for us to maintain it. Business and industry leaders have told us they were attracted to Shelby County because of the low crime rate. From an insurance and liability perspective, it is very important."