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: Grits for Breakfast

Exploring Texas crime data

Having posted an initial reaction to press coverage of the new Uniform Crime Reporting data (which showed so-called "index crimes" declining by 3% overall in Texas), let's adumbrate a few more details from this new dataset out of the Department of Public Safety:Despite declining crime last year and for most of the decade, according to the UCR, the number of adult Texans arrested increased by 2% in 2008, just as it increased in six of the last seven years. So Texas arrest trends appear disconnected from crime rates, to judge by these metrics. The number of juveniles arrested, by contrast, declined for the fourth year running.Among countervailing trends to the overall downward tendency, reported arson offenses increased 6%; one wonders whether that's in any way related to the economic downturn as homeowners look to their insurance company for an easy way out of a difficult financial problem?The value of stolen property recovered in 2008 was $552 million compared to $2 billion stolen...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on May 22, 2009 (boomark / email).