In Dallas, violent crime has declined over the past three years – but the murder rate is still above pre-COVID levels

Violent crime in Dallas has declined over the past three years compared to a similar period between May 2018 and May 2021, according to a presentation Monday by Dallas police and criminologists at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

But despite the overall decline in average violent crimes per month, the number of murders increased by 7.2 percent compared to the same period. The number of aggravated assaults in the city also increased by 2.9 percent.

Officials presented the data – current as of April – to the City Council's Public Safety Committee as part of an update to the DPD's Violent Crime Reduction Plan, which the department began implementing in May 2021.

While the total number of murders and assaults over the past three years is higher than pre-COVID levels, the annual numbers have declined every year since 2021, said Michael Smith, a criminology professor at UTSA who helped the DPD compile the data.

Smith said those numbers look promising through the end of 2024.

“I just looked at the numbers for the current year with Police Chief Garcia – (the city is) on a really good path in terms of murders and aggravated assaults this year,” Smith said.

Initial data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that the national murder rate rose by a historic 30% between 2019 and 2020.

The city's overall violent crime data reflects recent crime trends across the country. According to the FBI Quarterly Uniform Crime Report Released in June, violent crime among law enforcement agencies reporting their data fell 15.2 percent in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period last year.

The Dallas Crime Reduction Plan also identified specific violent locations throughout the city and measured the impact of crime reduction efforts in those locations.

Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia estimated that the crime-fighting plan costs the department more than $8 million annually. There has never been a line item in the city budget for the plan, he told the committee.

When asked what plans the DPD has to keep crime down in problem apartment complexes and other buildings across the city, Garcia told the board that all three parts of the crime reduction plan must be implemented simultaneously: investigating specific buildings, monitoring specific high-crime areas, and deterring people on probation or parole from reoffending.

“In this way, I believe we will achieve a reduction in the network areas in the city by influencing all three areas,” he said.

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