Council Member Chad West’s District 1 saw a number of steep year-over-year spikes in certain crime categories last month.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, West was named Crime Boss of the Month in January and February of this year for clocking the highest year-over-year Crime Score increases out of all 14 Dallas City Council members. Although Council Member Kathy Stewart (District 10) earned the Crime Boss title this month, West’s year-over-year Crime Score was still the second highest.
The Crime Score in District 1 increased by 17.8% last month, with significant hikes in motor vehicle thefts, burglaries, and vandalism.
District 1 is located just southwest of Downtown Dallas and includes the neighborhoods to the east of the City of Cockrell Hill.
According to the City of Dallas crime analytics dashboard, auto thefts jumped from 70 to 104, marking a 48.6% increase. Similarly, burglaries spiked by 40%, with 35 incidents recorded last month compared to the 25 logged in February 2022. Instances of vandalism or illegal destruction of property also increased, with crimes reported increasing from 41 to 46 for a 12.2% bump.
Furthermore, District 1 also saw year-over-year increases in the number of shoplifting cases, robberies, and drug violations.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, the Dallas Police Department’s crime-fighting efforts have been hampered by an ongoing officer shortage. DPD currently only fields around 3,000 officers despite a City analysis advising that closer to 4,000 would be more appropriate for a city of Dallas’ size.
Budgeting only $654 million for DPD this fiscal year, City leaders decided to spend much less taxpayer money on public safety than other high-crime jurisdictions, such as New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
Downtown Dallas has seen its share of criminal activity under the shortage, regularly outpacing Fort Worth’s city center in terms of reported crimes. The latter is patrolled by a dedicated police unit that collaborates with private security guards.
The Dallas Express, The People’s Paper, believes that important information about the city, such as crime rates and trends, should be easily accessible to you. Dallas has more crime per capita than hotspots like Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and New York, according to data from the FBI’s UCR database.
How did your area stack up on crime? Check out our interactive Crime Map to compare all Dallas City Council Districts. Curious how we got our numbers? Check out our methodology page here.