Council Member Chad West has once again been named Crime Boss of the Month, racking up a total of five titles so far this year.
The representative for District 1 clocked a 1.59% year-over-year Crime Score increase for the month of July.
West’s Crime Score increase was driven by spikes in several crime categories tracked by the City of Dallas crime analytics dashboard.
The data shows that car burglaries increased by 31.7%, jumping from 41 reports in July 2023 to 54 this July. Aggravated assaults also spiked, with the City logging 29 incidents last month compared to the 22 documented the previous year.
Simple assaults also saw a bump of roughly 6.7%. There were 80 reported in July 2024 and 75 in July 2023. Larceny also increased (7.9%), as did motor vehicle thefts (3.5%).
District 1 is located just southwest of Downtown Dallas, a neighborhood that has routinely seen significant amounts of criminal activity.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, the Central Business District logs far more reports of crime than nearby Fort Worth’s downtown area. A dedicated neighborhood police unit and private security guards patrol the latter.
The Dallas Police Department has been struggling to get crime under control as it continues to grapple with a significant staffing shortage. DPD fields only around 3,000 officers despite a prior City analysis advising that roughly 4,000 are needed to properly maintain public safety and reduce police response times.
Relatedly, the Dallas City Council chose to spend significantly less on law enforcement than their counterparts in other high-crime cities, such as New York City or Chicago. Council members signed off on a budget of just $654 million for DPD this fiscal year.
DX reached out to West for comment but did not receive a response by publication.
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.