Council Member Zarin Gracey has earned the title of Crime Boss of the Month for logging the smallest year-over-year Crime Score decrease in August.
District 3, which Gracey represents, only managed to clock a 5% dip in Crime Score last month, by far the smallest decrease in criminal activity among all 14 Dallas City Council districts.
According to the City of Dallas crime analytics dashboard, it appears that an alarming year-over-year spike in aggravated assaults undercut the gains in crime reduction the southwestern council district made in August.
The Dallas Police Department fielded some 39 aggravated assaults last month, marking a 56% jump from the 25 incidents documented in August 2023.
Other crime categories where District 3 saw an increase include drug equipment violations and robbery. Drug equipment violations more than doubled, with 14 crimes logged last month compared to the six the previous August for a 133% increase. Robberies inched up, however, with one more report clocked in August of this year for a total of 10 incidents.
DPD has been struggling to keep crime under control as it remains significantly understaffed. Despite a prior City analysis calling for a force of around 4,000 officers, the department only has around 3,000 on the street, a situation that has negatively impacted response times.
Relatedly, the department’s budget of $654 million this fiscal year is smaller than that of law enforcement agencies in other high-crime cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City.
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.