In July of 2022, it seemed as if the good news was on the horizon for the City of Dallas, as crime rates fell in each of the region’s 14 districts. There seemed to have been reductions of nearly 60% in Districts 3, 6, 8, 9, and 14. However, it was later discovered that the city-wide Crime Score was 54.6% lower than it should have been because 6,257 separate crime reports had no district information included. Click here for disability calculator.
Considering that crime fell by just 30.1% in his district in August, Councilman Chad West (who represents District 1) would have been chosen as The Dallas Express Crime Boss of the Month.
The Dallas Express was compelled to proportionately alter each district’s Dallas Crime Score to account for the unattributed crime statistics because the crime data could not be assigned to any district.
As a result of this revision, District 1 now has the unpleasant distinction of having the largest rise in crime rather than the least decline in crime from July 2021 to July 2022, as measured by the Crime Score.
The Dallas City Council member whose district had the highest monthly percentage rise (or smallest monthly decline) in crime is named “Crime Boss of the Month” (CBOM).
The raw number of Crimes in Dallas committed in each category is multiplied by a proprietary weighting, and the resulting scores are added together and then divided by the population (in thousands) in each district to produce a Crime Score.
Dallas City Hall’s 2020 population forecasts are used for both district and citywide population totals.
Monthly rankings are based on the percentage increase or decrease in the Crime Score from one year to the next. To get the percentage change from one year ago, we take the most current monthly Crime Score and divide it by last year’s total for the same month.
By winning August’s Crime Boss title, West has now won the CBOM championship three times in the last four months, and four times overall this year.
West has made history by being the first council member in Dallas to be named CBOM several times. (Both Carolyn King Arnold of District 4 and Jaynie Schultz of District 11 are two-time CBOM winners.)
The Dallas Express tried to get in touch with West about violence in his area by contacting his office. But the only answer I got was “Where are you obtaining your data?” (Open Data for the City of Dallas is the correct answer.)
The Dallas Express has not heard back from the councilor since he provided that response.
Although it seems that crime was reported less often in several D1 trouble spots, this estimate is biased since the location of nearly 6,200 offenses was not provided.
According to the data we have, there were no homicides in D1 during the month of July ’22, despite the fact that this same district experienced a second murder just the month before. The only crime type to increase between Julys was Trespass of Real Property, which went from five instances last year to six this year.
Motor Vehicle Theft was apparently down the most in D1, going from 108 in July ’21 to 81 in July ’22.
The City of Dallas did not provide the associated district for 6,257 offenses recorded around the city in July ’22, therefore it is impossible to know how July ’22 stacked up against July ’21.
Because of the lack of information from the City of Dallas, the Crime Scores for each district in July 2022 have been proportionally altered to reflect the reality of the situation.
Our research has led us to conclude that this is the most equitable method, despite its obvious flaws.
Unfortunately, Chad West may be held liable for crimes that occurred in the districts of his colleagues council members since the City of Dallas has disguised the statistics on such a massive number of crimes in July.
Chad West’s District 1 has become anything but secure, with a year-over-year rise of roughly 54% using our technique and a recent string of Crime Boss titles to his name.
