The Fort Worth Police Department revealed its most recent 2023 crime statistics, which indicated downward trends in homicides and property theft thanks to neighborhood police units and community-based initiatives.
The third-quarter crime report showed a 21.7% drop in homicides between the first nine months of this year and the year prior. Although the fourth quarter results will not be posted until January, authorities said the decline is expected to hold till the end of the year.
“We have people working around the clock, in offices, in neighborhoods, to dedicate every bit of themselves to making Fort Worth the safest major city in the country,” Police Chief Neil Noakes said, according to CBS News Texas.
However, the Fort Worth Police Department (FWPD) fell a bit short of its goal of a double-digit decrease in personal property crime, instead recording a single-digit decrease of 4% year over year.
Meanwhile, violent crime bumped up slightly by 0.8%. This was partly due to a 21.1% spike in human trafficking offenses, which Buddy Calzada, FWPD’s public information officer, qualified as a positive sign that its six-person unit was yielding results by identifying such cases and working them, as previously covered by The Dallas Express.
Calzada has also credited FWPD’s gains in tackling violent crime this year to its holistic approach, which involves not only different units working together but also an array of different stakeholders.
“We can’t do this on our own,” Calzada said, according to NBC 5 DFW. “We’ve come to the understanding that we have to build trust with the community, and when you build that trust, they start talking.”
Mayor Mattie Parker also stressed the importance of this holistic approach.
“With our Neighborhood Watch program, our IPOs, our neighborhood police officers — those are the people that are really contributing to the safety and neighborhoods and the trends downward you’re seeing in crime across the city of Fort Worth,” Parker said, according to CBS.
Noakes also added that next year should yield even more crime declines, as the City of Fort Worth recently approved a budget that will see new officers added to FWPD. He explained that the department will also see a tremendous boost in its recruitment efforts, with the city approving the creation of a new team “who will be doing nothing but searching across the country for the best possible candidates.”
This year’s crime statistics have not been as favorable in neighboring Dallas. Although the overall violent crime rate has fallen by 12.8% compared to last year, the murder rate has grown by 12.9%, according to data from the City’s crime analytics dashboard as of December 19. In terms of overall criminal offenses, there has been virtually no change compared to last year.
The Dallas Police Department has been laboring under a significant staffing shortage. Despite a City report recommending a force of 4,000 officers, DPD fields approximately 3,000. Downtown Dallas reflects this officer deficit most of all, with significantly higher rates of theft, assault, and motor vehicle theft reported compared to Fort Worth’s downtown area. The latter is patrolled by a specialized neighborhood police unit working alongside private security guards.
