It’s hard to get a true read on crime in Houston because even though most numbers show crime decreasing, many Houstonians don’t “feel” safe, as is seen by crime consistently topping the list of resident/voter concerns.
And making matters worse, whatever crime is actually committed adds to an under-acknowledged health crisis.
While the country’s violent crime rate has declined significantly since the 1990s, small upticks have been reported since 2015. Furthermore, violent crime rates spiked in several US cities in the latter months of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some larger urban cities continue to have disproportionately high violent crime rates. And to this many social scientists agree – violent crime (e.g., homicide, armed robbery, aggravated assault) is widely considered a public health concern in the US.
Linda Dahlberg and James Mercy’s article, “History of violence as a public health problem” makes this case.
Dahlberg, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) associate director for Science in the Division of Violence Prevention in the National Center for Injury Prevention, and Mercy, the CDC’s special advisor for strategic directions of the Division of Violence Prevention in the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, are joined by several others in making this assessment, including scholars Achim Wolf, Ron Gray and Seena Fazel who penned the article “Violence as a public health problem: an ecological study of 169 countries.”
According to the American Medical Association Journal of Ethics article by Lilliana Freire-Vargas:
“Violence, overall, has become a public health crisis. The three leading causes of death in the United States for people ages 15-34 are unintentional injury, suicide, and homicide. These violent deaths are, more often than not, directly associated with firearms. The US has a homicide rate seven times higher than other high-income countries, with homicides committed by firearms being 25 times higher than in other high-income countries.”
After a local and national spike in violent crimes during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-21), crime numbers have gone down. In the summer of 2023, Houston Police Chief Troy Finner held a press conference announcing that the city’s overall violent crime rate was down by 12% and overall crime was down by 6%.
At the time, even though property crimes and auto thefts increased by 14% and burglaries increased by 2%, Houston’s crime had decreased in several categories: Homicides (27%), Human trafficking (23%), Kidnappings (19%), Aggravated assaults (12%), Robberies (10%), Rapes (6%), Thefts (10%), and Non-violent crimes (5%).
And even as then-Mayor Sylvester Turner’s One Safe Houston initiative was largely credited with the crime reduction numbers, when it came time for Houstonians to elect a new mayor in November 2023, crime was the leading issue and the main talking point of the eventual winner, John Whitmire.
The large focus politicians and broadcast media place upon crime becomes magnified with reports like the one released by PropertyClub that said, “The most dangerous neighborhood in Houston is Sunnyside due to its extremely high crime rate, which has only risen in recent years. The crime rate in Sunnyside is 92 per 1,000 people, meaning residents have a one in 11 chance of being the victim of a crime. Some of the most common violent crimes in the neighborhood are robbery, assaults, and to a lesser degree, murder.”
Stats vs. Feelings Disconnect
Where, then, is the disconnect?
Nationally, reporters in America’s largest urban cities all share the same testimony: residents’ perceptions of crime levels depend less upon actual crime stats than on their news source of choice, with more conservative local and national news programs painting a picture of crime that’s bleaker than reality.
These reporters contend Republican politicians score points with their base by demonizing “urban” areas with large Black populations as bastions of crime. The result: even though crime numbers are down, many people feel less safe and are voting accordingly.
There’s also the reality that any crime committed makes the victim and all who learn of that crime, feel less safe, regardless of what the numbers say.
Most Dangerous Houston Neighborhoods
Even the framing of the conversation leads people to feel more on edge about crime. For example, online apartment finder, PropertyClub used 2021 and 2022 crime statistics to list the “10 most dangerous neighborhoods in Houston.”
Here is how PropertyClub presented their findings:
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Sunnyside: Most common for murder, robbery, assaults
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MacGregor: One of the most dangerous areas in the United States.
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Sharpstown: Firearm-related violent crime was 67% higher than the Houston rate.
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Greenspoint: HPD has put a lot of effort into establishing law and order in the area, but it hasn’t worked.
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Far North: Violent crime is happening at 2,455 per 100,000 people.
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Northeast: The violent crime rate is 197% higher than the national average.
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Northwest: The area is more dangerous than 86% of other neighborhoods in Texas.
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East End: The violent crime rate in this area is also 101% higher than the US national average.
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Sugarland: It’s not a great place to raise your kids.
10.Pasadena: Crimes such as armed robbery, aggravated assault, rape, or murder are high in this neighborhood.
Most Dangerous Houston Zip Codes
Additionally, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) chimed in with their “Top 10 most dangerous zip codes in Houston” based on an FBI analysis of HPD data including 911 calls, crime severity, and felonies associated with those crimes:
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77036 -
77021 -
77081 -
77033 -
77074 -
77054 -
77004 -
77051 -
77035 -
77048
Still, as of January 2024, according to the ABC13 Neighborhood Safety Tracker, homicides in Houston are down by about 20%. Other crimes are down, including burglaries, robberies, thefts, and assaults are down, but not by much, while auto thefts and sexual assaults are both up.
Also of note, white-collar crimes that historically do more damage to cities, economic and otherwise, than all other crimes combined, including redlining, discriminatory hiring, environmental polluting, and subprime mortgage loans, rarely, if ever, enter the conversation when voters, politicians, and police discuss crime.
Neither do crimes of abuse inflicted upon Blacks and Hispanics by the legal system.
Proposed Solutions
One of Whitmire’s solutions for reducing crime rates is getting repeat offenders off the streets and before judges.
“There are 900 people on the streets of Houston charged with murder or capital murder waiting to go to court to be held accountable, a very dangerous group,” Whitmire said in January.
You may recall, as a state senator, Whitmire helped pass legislation to prioritize trials for those charged with capital murder and murder; a position he believes is extremely relevant when considering as of January 2024 there were reportedly upwards of 32,000 active felony cases, and 25% of them have been pending for more than a year.
Even though the US legal system defines these individuals as “innocent until proven guilty,” society has long since moved past that sentiment, and has colored these individuals guilty of both past charged wrongdoings and potential future crimes, thus amping up the level of societal feelings of being unsafe and overridden by crime.
Whitmire’s other priority is to increase HPS recruitment numbers as the department, like most nationally, is struggling to fill vacancies.
Last November, Finner announced “Project Safe View,” his plan to get more residents and businesses to purchase and install surveillance cameras and license plate readers that hold data for 30 days.
“If you know that every time that you’re doing something, you’re going to be on somebody’s camera, you’re going to think twice about it,” Finner explained. “If you are brave enough to do it, we have that footage.”
This suggested solution has been tried by other cities, like Detroit, whose initiative was called Project Green Light. However, according to a study by the National Institute of Justice, the cameras made no difference in reducing violent crime though they did help lower property crimes by 27%.
But if making Houstonians “feel” safe is more important than their actual safety, Finner’s and Whitmire’s strategies may be viewed by Houstonians as winning ideas.
