Dallas has been seeing sharp increases in specific criminal offenses, according to a recent report published by the Dallas Police Department.
While the City of Dallas has yet to restore full functionality to its public-facing crime statistic dashboards, the Dallas Police Department resumed posting its daily Compstat briefing last week, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
As of July 30, there have been 153 murders committed within Dallas city limits, marking a nearly 11% increase year over year, per the latest report.
Murder was not the only crime category to see a sharp spike. Non-family violence fondling shot up by 37% during the same period, with 100 incidents reported year to date.
Auto thefts and shoplifting also saw steep increases. Between January 1 and July 30, there have been 10,324 reported motor vehicle thefts, far more than the 7,700 logged last year. The difference amounts to a 34% year-over-year hike. For its part, shoplifting increased by 54%, with 1,449 incidents logged.
DPD has been enduring a severe staffing shortage for some time now. There are currently only around 3,100 police officers deployed in the city, roughly 900 short of the 4,000 recommended by a City analysis that claims Dallas needs approximately three officers for every 1,000 residents.
Downtown Dallas has borne a considerable amount of the blowback from the spikes in crime, with a considerable number of auto thefts regularly committed in the neighborhood. As previously reported by The Dallas Express, the Metroplex Civic and Business Association reviewed crime analytics for April and found a much more severe car theft problem in Downtown Dallas (91 incidents) than in Fort Worth’s downtown area (2 incidents).
Fort Worth has a dedicated unit patrolling its downtown area alongside private security guards.
Dallas has experimented with its own special unit for Deep Ellum, which the City tailored to the specific needs of the criminal activity in the area, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
At present, the City of Dallas Open Data crime analytics dashboard does not have its former capacity to parse through data geographically after May 3; while it displays similar data to the Compstat report, it does not allow for analysis of crime trends within the different neighborhoods of Dallas.
Previous requests for comment from the City have asserted that 97% of computer systems are operating as expected but that some functionality is allegedly still disabled due to a ransomware attack that occurred almost three months ago.
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.
Curious to know how your area stacked up on crime? Normally, you could check out our interactive Crime Map to compare all Dallas City Council Districts, but as reliable data remain unavailable, this feature remains blank. Those interested in how we got our numbers previous to the ransomware hurdles can check out our methodology page here.