Councilwoman Jaynie Schultz Named Crime Boss

Dallas City Councilmember Jaynie Schultz of District 11 has been named January’s Crime Boss of the Month based on crime data for the month of December 2022.

She clocked the greatest year-over-year increase in Crime Score last month, more than any other council member in the city, logging an 18.16% hike compared to December 2021, according to the downloadable data set made available by City of Dallas Open Data on January 9, 2023.

Schultz was last named Crime Boss in February 2022, just a few months after receiving the dishonor for the first time in November 2021, making her one of just a handful of council members to be named Crime Boss three times or more since the series first launched.

The councilwoman currently sits on a number of committees, including Environment & Sustainability, Transportation & Infrastructure, Workforce, Education & Equity, and the Ad Hoc Committee on General Investigating & Ethics.

She also sits on the failed Housing & Homelessness Solutions Committee, which has done little to mitigate the scourge of homelessness and vagrancy that has plagued Dallas for years.

Certain crime categories pushed Schultz’s Crime Score over the edge, including auto thefts and drug crimes, both of which have been seeing significant increases within Dallas city limits, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.

According to the City of Dallas Open Data crime analytics dashboard, District 11 saw a 35% year-over-year increase in reported motor vehicle thefts and a 74% hike in drug offenses in December 2022.

Crime also accelerated month-to-month, with significant upticks in December in reported burglaries and assaults, 27% and 21%, respectively, compared to November.

Robberies, however, saw a staggering 133% increase over December 2021, mapping onto an internal crime briefing recently published by the Dallas Police Department that indicates violent crimes of all types are currently skyrocketing.

The Dallas Express‘ Murder Victims Graphic logged five killings in 2023 as of January 9, a 150% increase over the same period last year.

Three of those homicides happened in Schultz’s District 11 on Friday. This triple murder also sent two others to the hospital after gunshots rang out in an apartment complex’s parking lot, as previously reported in The Dallas Express.

When the Murder Victims Graphic first launched last month, it clocked 205 murders year to date through December 13, 2022, the overwhelming majority of whose victims (92%) were black and Hispanic.

The Dallas Express reached out to Schultz’s office and asked whether she plans to run for re-election later this year. A spokesperson replied, “Yes, she is.”

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.