The Dallas City Council’s Public Safety Committee met Monday to discuss crime and policing issues facing the city.
Major Jason Scoggins from the Dallas Police Department presented to the committee a compilation of statistics to contextualize the criminal offenses taking place throughout the city.
Scoggins began with a discussion of homicide statistics, noting that the city’s 29% increase in murders has been primarily driven by arguments and conflicts.
“Obviously, when you look at the murder category, it’s something we have a challenge with every year,” said Scoggins.
He told the committee the murder trend has driven an increase in Priority One calls, which require immediate dispatch of officers to a location.
“We’ve seen an increase in Priority One calls by 8%; these calls are life-and-death situations.”
The meeting also highlighted what the DPD claimed was a successful series of engagements to reduce crimes perpetrated against local businesses. Police touted a 35.25% reduction in business robberies while highlighting an overall drop in robberies totaling 9.47%.
Individual robberies were down just 1.36%.
DPD representatives also introduced a crime reduction plan that has been in place since early this year.
Data-Informed Community Engagement (DICE) was rolled out by DPD in early 2023. A police spokesperson said the department waited until the plan’s maturation to highlight its impact to the Public Safety Committee.
DPD shared its DICE plan, which it summarized as a “risk-prevention law enforcement model,” with The Dallas Express:
“The DICE process guides crime prevention efforts by combining data analysis with community-led risk narratives to learn where and why people tend to commit crimes in certain settings. This plan describes how the use of risk modeling combines with community involvement to guide violence reduction efforts at places of highest risk.
“The highest risk locations for violent crime in the city make up only 3% of the land area of the City of Dallas but account for 21% of the total violent gun crimes.”