Texarkana has made numerous lists including being ranked in the top 100 most dangerous cities in America, and top 10 most dangerous cities in their respective state, though these rankings were disputed by Police Chief Dan Shiner at a City Council meeting on Monday. Shiner says these statistics are inaccurate.
The data used to calculate the amount of Texarkana’s per capita crime rate is representing a misguided number because according to Shiner the formula only uses residential population numbers. The formulas fails to account for the much larger number of people who travel through Texarkana and spend time in the community daily. If these numbers were factored in, this would increase the city’s population thus decreasing the amount of per capita crime.
“These misrepresentations are really believed by some people. Placing value in these publications is harmful to our community, and a disservice to everyone who lives here,” stated Chief Dan Shiner.
Shiner pointed out that one such source calls their own product “infotainment.”
According to a 2015 Annual Analysis Report and Chief Shiner crime rates in Texarkana have decreased.
Shiner delivered a presentation which included a detailed report on the city’s crime rates that showed a decrease of 18.6 percent in Part 1 Uniform Crime Reporting offenses and 12.9 percent in Part 2 UCR offenses from 2014 to 2015. Statistics also show a 13.9 percent drop in Part 1 crimes so far in 2016, which include murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, theft, and auto theft.
Also according to this report the total calls for TTPD service fell from 41,021 in 2014 to 37,506 in 2015, and department arrests decreased from 3,582 in 2014 to 3,435 in 2015.
“The 911 center handles approximately 120,000 calls for service on an annual basis. Our department Texarkana Texas Police Department had 5,500 officer initiated calls and 31,900+ 911 calls that we handled and that figure was down from 41 thousand the year before,” explained Shiner.
“I caution everybody to understand that crime is cyclical, we can see some increases next week, next month, but the trend has been quite evident for the last two years now.”