Robberies have not been coming down this year despite City officials touting the successes of the Dallas Police Department’s Violent Crime Reduction Plan.
According to the City of Dallas crime analytics dashboard, there have been 317 robberies recorded as of February 25, an uptick from the 315 logged during the same period in 2023. While violent crime overall has gone down over the last couple of years, murders have increased, and robberies remain stubbornly high.
Three Dallas City Council districts logged more than 30 robberies each, with Districts 4 and 6 tying for most incidents, which are represented by Council Members Carolyn King Arnold and Omar Narvaez, respectively. Both districts clocked 34 incidents, and Council Member Jaynie Schultz’s District 11 saw the second most with 33.
District 11 is in northern Dallas, while District 6 makes up the city’s northwestern flank and District 2 is located in southern Dallas.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, DPD has been struggling against the tide amid a serious officer shortage. The department only has around 3,000 officers on staff even though a prior City analysis claimed approximately 4,000 were necessary to properly maintain public safety and reduce Dallas’ lengthy police response times.
Budgeting only $654 million for DPD this fiscal year, the Dallas City Council voted to spend far fewer taxpayer dollars 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 staffing shortage.
The impact of the shortage has been felt in Downtown Dallas. The neighborhood routinely clocks far more criminal activity than Fort Worth’s city center. A dedicated special police unit and private security guards patrol the latter.
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.