Why Texas Has So High Crime Rates ?? (Houston, Dallas: crime rate, to buy)

[overlander]

i am from Spain, i plan to buy a property in one of the main cities of Texas but i have seen that the big cities of this state has much higher crime rates than the U.S. average, somebody could explain why ?? , thanks a lot for the information, greetings from Andalucia, south Spain.

[GoPadge]

Over the yeras, many of the affluent have left the "main cities" and moved out into the suburbs. So while the city of Dallas has a high crime rate, (and lower median income and eduction level), outlying cities such as Highland Park, Richardson, Plano, Garland, etc have much lower crime rates (and higher incomes and education levels).

[conanS]

Bigger cities seem to attract the criminal element. I guess they figure with more people it'll be harder for them to get caught

[Texan#1]

Cities report crime statistics differently. (I think). Also, people in say Chicago may not report crimes because they pretty much know nothing will be done about them, while people here in Texas report just about everything . Crime is, however, a serious problem in our country.

[dblakey04]

You may be looking at the inner city areas. The suburbs are quite safe actually!

[LastDallasNative]

Criminals here in Texas take risks - they don't know who is carrying a concealed gun.

It is fun to keep them guessing.

[Mr. Football]

Texas has a large population (well over a million)of illegal immigrants with hundreds of thousands coming and going every year. This population has a disproportionately high crime rate, which is evidenced by the startling number of illegal aliens in Texas prisons.

[deeptrance]

I'm not going to defend Texas --- crime here is worse than other places in the USA and one reason is that it's near the border, another is its history of outlaw culture, another is that there is so much poverty. There is a high correlation between the income gap and the crime rate. If you have concentrated wealth and lots of very poor people, your crime rate will be higher.

Also, not all Texas cities are the same. It's a state the size of France, and it's completely different between Houston and El Paso, or Austin vs. Dallas. Crime rates are much higher in certain areas and are very low in other areas.

One other factor is that crime in the USA is always higher in places that are growing quickly. This is due to anonymity, lack of roots in the community, drifters wandering through town, and general socioeconomic instability.

We've got it all, every reason possible for having high crime exists here.

[christina0001]

All or almost all cities will have a higher crime rate than the U.S. overall average.

[speedoflight]

I did a look up on crime numbers for Texas cities versus other cities infamous for crime. For example, Dallas v. Los Angeles; Houston v. NYC and also of large Texas cities against each other. The statistics given are 2004 numbers.

LA is about 3x larger than Dallas in population but it has less murders per 100,000 people than Dallas. LA has about 3.8 million people and Dallas has 1.2 million people. Dallas leads in murder, rape, robbery, burglary, larceny theft and vehicle theft (See the image file I have attached at the very bottom of my post).

LA v. Houston. Both cities are very similar in population size. LA: 3.8 million v. Houston: 2 million. Houston leads in rape, robbery, burglary, larceny theft and vehicle theft. (See image file)

I also did comparisons of Houston and NYC. NYC is about 4x larger than Houston in population but still fares less than Houston in crime in a most categories. Population of NYC is 8.1 million and Houston is 2.0 million. Houston leads over NYC (crime per 100k people) in murder, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, larceny theft and vehicle theft. (See image file)

I then compared San Antonio and Dallas, both cities are very similar in size with each other. San Antonio beats Dallas in only 1 category - rape. Dallas exceeds San Antonio in murder, robbery, assault, burglary, larceny theft and vehicle theft. Both cities have a higher than average crime rate. (See image file)

Here's a report entitled, "Texas Tough? An Analysis of Incarceration and Crime Trends in the Lone Star State" from the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice:
http://www.cjcj.org/pubs/texas/texas.html

Interesting excerpt from this report:
The comparison between Texas and New York is particularly noteworthy, as their state populations are relatively matched. While Texas had the fastest growing prison system in the country during the 1990s, New York had the third slowest growing prison population in the U.S.(26) During the 1990s, Texas added more prisoners to its prison system (+98,081) than New York's entire prison population (73,233) by some 24,848 prisoners. This means that the number of prisoners that Texas added during the 1990s was 34% higher than New York's entire prison population. Throughout the 1990s, Texas added five times as many prisoners as New York did (18,001). Nevertheless, the Lone Star State's crime drops were much less impressive than what occurred in the Empire State. Since 1995, the percentage decline in overall crime in New York was four times greater than the drop experienced in Texas, and New York's crime rate dropped twice as much as Texas. Even if you go back further, from 1990 to 1998--the decline in the crime rate in New York was 26% greater than the drop in crime in Texas.

TX Crime Analysis (2004, DPS):
http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/crimereports/04/cit04ch2.pdf