Council Member Chad West has been named Crime Boss of the Month for the second month in a row based on the criminal activity logged in District 1 in January.
District 1 is situated southwest of Historic Downtown between I-30 and Illinois Avenue and includes neighborhoods east of Cockrell Hill and west of I-35.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, West was named January Crime Boss last month because of steep increases in motor vehicle thefts, car burglaries, cases of intimidation, and thefts of motor vehicle parts, with a year-over-year Crime Score increase of 28.9%.
West’s February Crime Boss title, however, comes from an even greater Crime Score increase of 30.7%.
According to the City of Dallas crime analytics dashboard, several categories of crime jumped in District 1 last month. Motor vehicle thefts, for instance, increased by 49.4% compared to January of 2023. Car burglaries also spiked, clocking a 65% increase. Vandalism and criminal destruction of property jumped by 12.8%. Drug violations ticked up by 8.6%. Larceny offenses skyrocketed by 52.4%. And aggravated assaults inched up by 3.8%
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, the Dallas Police Department has been struggling to get crime under control amid a longstanding shortage of officers. The department currently only fields around 3,000 officers despite a City analysis recommending roughly 4,000 are needed to get police response times down and properly maintain public safety.
The effects of the shortage have been apparent in Downtown Dallas, which District 1 borders. The neighborhood regularly logs far more criminal activity than Fort Worth’s city center. A dedicated special police unit and private security guards patrol the latter.
Budgeting only $654 million for DPD this fiscal year, City officials are set to spend much less taxpayer money on public safety than other high-crime cities, like New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The City’s budget was adopted despite DPD’s officer shortage.
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.