The City of Dallas approved a $4.75 billion budget for the fiscal year 2022-23, and one-line item on that bill includes giving the Dallas Police Department (DPD) $611.9 million in funding, representing about 35.9% of the general fund.
“Public safety needed to come first,” Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson wrote in his October 2 open letter. “The goal must be to become the safest major city in the nation. That won’t happen overnight, but this budget is another significant step in the right direction because it recommits to both robust data-driven policing strategies and community-based solutions to deter violent crime.”
Johnson said that he and the 14 municipal council members unanimously agreed to approve the budget for the first time since 2019, The Dallas Express reported.
The allocation to the Dallas Police Department, an approximately 8% funding increase from $565.9 million last year, will be used in part to assist in responding to the growing number of crimes reported in the city.
Overall crime has continuously climbed over the last four years. Violent crimes in particular shot up 14% between 2018 and 2019, with another 5% increase in 2020 compared to 2019, DPD noted in its Violent Crime Reduction Plan (VCRP) introduced last year.
The objective of the VCRP is to focus resources on reducing the rate of violent crime in the city’s most high-risk neighborhoods, thus bringing down the overall level of violence reported throughout the entire region. Just 14 (1.2%) of Dallas’ 1,156 reporting areas are responsible for 10% of the city’s total number of violent crimes, DPD stated.
The plan, which went into effect beginning in May 2021, calls for the DPD to use “hot spot” policing in historically violent crime locations to dissuade violent offenders through enforcement and monitoring.
One year later, year-over-year comparisons of crime stats for May and June reflect an increase, rather than a decrease, in the categories that officially comprise violent crime: Homicide, Robbery, and Assault.
When comparing May 2021 — the month the VCRP was implemented — to May 2022 — when the plan had been in effect for a year — Assault Offenses rose from 752 to 850, Robbery rose from 225 to 301, and Homicide doubled, from eight to 16.
For a year-over-year comparison of the month following the plan’s implementation — June 2021 versus June 2022 — Assaults increased from 744 to 762, Robberies from 203 to 271, and Homicides from six to eight.
More recently, local law enforcement received reports of 8,320 crimes in September 2022, an average of 277 crimes per day, including an average of 22 Assault cases per day, according to the latest data.
Dallas was home to 10 Homicides last month, the greatest number of which occurred in Adam Bazaldua’s District 7 with three, an increase of two over the previous September.
District 13 came in at a close second, logging two Homicides last month, and Councilwoman Gay Donnell Willis was awarded Crime Boss of the Month (CBOM) for October after that region experienced its eighth consecutive Crime Score increase of the year.
District 8, led by Councilman Tennell Atkins, also saw two Homicides in September 2022, up two from the September before.
With three more months of data left to be recorded this year, time will tell if City policies and increased budgeting for law enforcement are ultimately effective. DPD will likely have their hands full either way.
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.