Violent crime rose sharply on both sides of Texarkana in 2025 while falling across Texas and Arkansas. Both police departments say the numbers overstate it.
TAPD says a records system change is capturing offenses that were missed before. TTPD says 2024 was an unusually low year and 2025 matches 2021.
TEXARKANA — The two police departments that split Texarkana down State Line Avenue reported 589 violent crimes in 2025, up from 383 the year before, according to the annual crime reports published by Texas and Arkansas. Aggravated assaults across the two cities rose from 303 to 490.
Both states saw violent crime fall. Texas recorded a 12 percent decline, and aggravated assaults in Arkansas dropped 8 percent. Texarkana moved the other way on both sides of the line, and the 70 percent increase on the Texas side was the second largest of any Texas city with at least 20,000 residents.
Both departments, asked to explain the increases, said the year-over-year comparison is misleading, for different reasons.
Capt. Zach White, services commander for the Texarkana Arkansas Police Department, said the department replaced two disconnected records systems with a single one in November 2024, and that offenses which previously fell through the gap between the two are now being counted. “In short, data was missed between the two systems in the past that are now being captured,” White said in a written response. He said the department believes crime actually decreased in 2025.
Shawn Vaughn, public information spokesperson for the Texarkana Texas Police Department, said 2024 was an unusually low year and that the city’s 2025 figures are in line with 2021. Aggravated assaults were 186 in 2021 and 184 in 2025, Vaughn said, and total index crimes are down 13 percent over that span. He also pointed to preliminary 2026 data showing offenses roughly flat over the past 12 months.
The Texas figures come from Crime in Texas 2025, released by the Texas Department of Public Safety in June, and the agency-level spreadsheet DPS publishes alongside it. The Arkansas figures come from Crime in Arkansas 2025, compiled by the Arkansas Crime Information Center and delivered to the Arkansas Legislative Council on Aug. 21. Both reports count offenses that local agencies submit through the National Incident-Based Reporting System.
Texas side: aggravated assaults nearly doubled
The Texarkana Texas Police Department reported 184 aggravated assaults in 2025, up from 98. Rapes rose from 23 to 34. The city recorded one murder after none in 2024. Robberies were the only violent category to fall, from 17 to 15.
Offense 2024 2025 Change Murder 0 1 +1 Rape 23 34 +48% Robbery 17 15 -12% Aggravated assault 98 184 +88% Violent crime total 138 234 +70%
Every one of those categories fell statewide. Texas recorded 76,580 aggravated assaults in 2025, down 11 percent, and 1,458 murders, down 11 percent. Rapes fell 10 percent and robberies 17 percent.
Of the 119 Texas cities over 20,000 with comparable data for both years, 82 saw violent crime fall or hold flat. Texarkana was one of 37 where it rose. Only Socorro, near El Paso, saw a larger percentage increase.
Family violence incidents, which Texas tracks separately from index crimes, rose 15 percent in the city, from 478 to 549.
TTPD: 2024 was the outlier
Vaughn did not dispute the figures but said a single-year comparison “doesn’t tell the whole story.”
Year Aggravated assaults 2021 186 2022 107 2023 120 2024 98 2025 184
By the department’s count, total index offenses fell from 1,465 in 2021 to 1,271 in 2025, property crimes from 1,187 to 1,035, and motor vehicle thefts from 119 to 70.
Texas as a whole has also fallen well below its 2021 levels, and continued to fall in 2025 while Texarkana returned to where it had been.
Vaughn also cited preliminary 2026 data. July 2026 had 92 reported offenses, 12 percent fewer than July 2025, and the most recent rolling 12-month total of 1,179 offenses was about even with the prior 12 months. He noted those figures can still be revised.
“The overall numbers don’t tell us why a particular category went up or down,” Vaughn said. Determining that requires reviewing individual cases for common locations, types of disputes or other patterns, which he said the department does continually to direct personnel.
“A police department cannot control the overall crime rate by itself,” Vaughn said, citing economic conditions, family and social issues, substance abuse and mental health as factors outside law enforcement’s control. Officers make roughly 350 to 400 arrests a month, he said.
Vaughn reported a sharp rise in clearances. According to DPS agency data he cited, the department cleared 35 violent crimes in 2024 against 138 reported, and 137 in 2025 against 234, moving the clearance rate from about 25 percent to 58 percent. The burglary clearance rate rose from 6 percent to 21 percent. He noted that a clearance recorded in one year can involve an offense reported in a prior year.
Arkansas side: assaults up 49 percent
The Texarkana Arkansas Police Department reported 2,714 total offenses in 2025, down from 3,339 the year before. But the decline came almost entirely from lower-level offenses. The four crimes the FBI classifies as violent rose from 245 to 355.
Offense 2024 2025 Change Murder 4 2 -2 (-50%) Rape 14 20 +43% Robbery 22 27 +23% Aggravated assault 205 306 +49% Violent crime total 245 355 +45%
Statewide, Arkansas murders dropped from 223 to 196 and aggravated assaults fell 8 percent.
TAPD: a records gap, not a crime wave
White said that through most of 2024 the department ran two separate systems. Calls for service and case numbers were generated in Tyler Police Services, the system used by other agencies that share the Bi-State Justice Center’s central records, while officers wrote reports in a second program, ADSi. In November 2024 the department moved everything, from dispatch through case submission to the prosecutor’s office, onto the Motorola Flex suite.
“While the numbers do show an increase, we believe there to actually be a decrease in the actual crime,” White said. “This is not due to an actual increase, but rather a more accurate reporting and tracking system.”
White said the department anticipated the increase because “the old system was not reporting correctly,” and that it is confident accurate reporting is essential to understanding crime trends. He said comparing 2025 with 2026 will give a more accurate picture than comparing 2025 with 2024.
Where the two sides rank
The Texas side’s 234 violent crimes gave it the eighth-highest violent crime rate among the 156 Texas cities with at least 20,000 residents, ahead of Dallas, San Antonio and Fort Worth.
Rank City Population Violent crimes Rate per 1,000 1 Beaumont 112,404 1,057 9.4 2 Alton 24,213 226 9.3 3 Houston 2,413,559 21,593 8.9 4 Big Spring 21,734 186 8.6 5 Corpus Christi 317,077 2,553 8.1 6 Lubbock 275,713 1,827 6.6 7 Alamo 20,960 138 6.6 8 Texarkana 35,907 234 6.5 9 Port Arthur 55,747 334 6.0 10 Dallas 1,331,217 7,782 5.8
Among Texas cities of similar size, 30,000 to 45,000 residents, Texarkana’s rate was the highest in the state. Converse, outside San Antonio, was second at 4.7, and Lufkin third at 4.4.
On the Arkansas side, the aggravated assault rate of 10.6 per 1,000 residents was the fifth highest among the 14 largest police departments in the state, behind West Memphis, El Dorado, Pine Bluff and Little Rock. In 2024, the rate of 7.0 per 1,000 had ranked seventh. Texarkana, Arkansas, police serve a reporting population of 28,778.
The Arkansas side remains considerably more violent per resident. Its rate of 12.3 violent crimes per 1,000 residents was nearly double the Texas side’s 6.5. Combined, the two cities had a rate of 9.1 violent crimes per 1,000 residents.
Burglaries and vehicle thefts rose on both sides
Property crime followed the same pattern in both cities.
On the Texas side, burglaries rose from 78 to 137, a 76 percent increase, while burglaries statewide fell 13 percent. Motor vehicle thefts rose from 61 to 70 as they fell 24 percent across Texas. Larceny rose 10 percent, to 828.
Offense 2024 2025 Change Texas change Burglary 78 137 +76% -13% Larceny and theft 752 828 +10% -9% Motor vehicle theft 61 70 +15% -24% Arson 2 2 0 -11% All index crimes 1,031 1,271 +23% -12%
DPS calculates the Texas side’s overall index crime rate at 3,540 per 100,000 residents in 2025, up from 2,898. The statewide rate was 2,178.
On the Arkansas side, burglaries rose from 121 to 185 while falling 20 percent statewide. Motor vehicle thefts rose from 53 to 67 as they fell 21 percent across Arkansas.
The dollar value of property reported stolen in Texarkana, Arkansas, nearly doubled, from $1.1 million in 2024 to $2 million in 2025. Police recovered 15 percent of it, down from 49 percent the year before.
Much of the increase was cash. Residents and businesses reported $535,966 in stolen money in 2025, up from $138,668. Stolen firearms almost doubled in value, from $18,609 to $34,920. Reported truck thefts went from $3,500 to $184,238.
Automobile theft losses were roughly flat at $445,516, but recovery collapsed. Police recovered nearly every dollar of stolen automobiles in 2024 and 36 percent in 2025.
White said the department’s property section has been successful in recovering property, but that many recoveries happen outside its jurisdiction and he is not certain the new system records them correctly. He said the department is looking into it.
The Arkansas side’s overall decline came from shoplifting and intimidation
While violent and property crime rose, total reported offenses in Texarkana, Arkansas, fell 19 percent. The drop traces to three categories.
Offense 2024 2025 Change Shoplifting 404 141 -65% Intimidation 554 329 -41% Simple assault 565 460 -19% Vandalism 322 266 -17%
Shoplifting fell 17 percent statewide in Arkansas, so some of the Texarkana decline tracks a broader trend. But a 65 percent single-year drop is large enough to raise the question of whether reporting practices changed.
White said the department could not comment on retailer reporting, but that “it is possible that the new reporting system is more accurately capturing and reporting this data.”
Intimidation is the offense category for threats that do not involve physical contact, including many domestic disturbance calls.
Arkansas side arrests fell 30 percent
Texarkana, Arkansas, police made 1,796 arrests in 2025, down from 2,553 in 2024. Arrests for serious offenses, which the state tracks as Group A, fell from 1,378 to 839.
White said the department could not be certain why without careful analysis, but that it believes the Flex system is more accurate than the two systems it used before.
Of the 839 Group A arrests, 548 were men and 291 were women. Black residents accounted for 501 of those arrests, or 60 percent, and white residents for 334. Fifty-six of the arrests involved juveniles, including 12 of the department’s 35 burglary arrests.
Drug arrests fell slightly, from 307 to 275. Methamphetamine possession arrests rose from 98 to 116, while marijuana possession arrests fell from 136 to 81.
The department reported 56 sworn officers at the end of 2025, one more than the year before, along with 13 civilians.