The Collin County Observer

Note: This is the second in a series examining crime statistics in Collin County. The first looked at domestic violence rates.

Collin County residents enjoy a low crime rate. In fact many move to Collin County to escape the high crime associated with life in the big city. How safe are you really?

SELECTED CRIME RATES FOR MURDER, RAPE AND BURGLARY

The City of Dallas has a murder rate of 13.3 per 100,000 in population, while Collin County's overall murder rate in 2008 is less than 1/7th of that at 2.0.

Burglary rates are about a third of Dallas, with Dallas at 1,657.2 and Collin County at 514.7. The differences are less dramatic for rape. Dallas' rate is 39.1 and Collin County's is 22.6.

However as was noted when we looked at Family Violence rates, some areas of Collin County are much safer than others.

Women living in the rural, unincorporated areas of the county served by the Sheriff's Department and in McKinney stand twice the chance of getting raped than their counterparts in Allen or Plano.

The differences in burglary rates is the most striking. Rural burglary rates in the county are a whopping 1,026.7. This is lower than Dallas, but higher than the national average of 730.8, Texas' average of 946.5 and a whopping three fold increase over Allen's 358.0.

In fact, rural Collin County burglary rates exceed those of all but 5 states and exceeds the national average for suburban areas by 20%.

Collin County selected crime rates per 100,000 compared to other jurisdictions

CLEARANCE RATES

I've heard several law enforcement and prosecutors boast that, "If you don't want to do the time, don't come to Collin County to do the crime". Our judges and juries are well-known for having a low tolerance for law breakers, and they routinely assess longer prison terms than our neighboring counties would.

But a criminal will only face a jury and a possible long prison term if he is caught and brought to trial.

The Collin County Jail

The US Department of Justice, the FBI and the Texas Department of Public Safety all compile statistics on crime rates and clearance rates. The clearance rate is the percentage of reported crimes solved by either arrest or something extraordinary, such as the death of the perpetrator.

According to statistics gathered by the Texas Department of Public Safety, there's a very good chance that in Collin County, if you do the crime, you won't be caught.

You probably won't get away with murder here. In 2008, the national murder clearance average was 63.6%, and the state average was 80%.In the same year, Dallas cleared 65% of their murders.

Our clearance rate for the 14 homicides in 2008 was 50%. In 2007 however, Collin County law enforcement cleared 100% of the 5 homicides reported. (The relatively small numbers of murders here means just 2 or 3 unsolved cases on one year can skew the statistics greatly from year to year.)

For rapes the disparity between our county and the rest of the nation is dramatic. The national clearance rate is 40.4%, in Texas it is 44%, but here in Collin County we solved only 27% of the 158 reported rapes in 2008. the Dallas Police solved 61% of their reported rape cases, over twice the rate of Collin County.

Only Plano's clearance rate of 41% exceeded the national average, and no Collin County jurisdictions came close to the average rate in Texas. (I am discounting the 100% clearance rate in Farmersville and the 50% in Celina. Since there was only one reported rape in Farmersville and 2 in Celina, the sample is too small for meaningful comparisons)

Allen, which had 7 rapes reported wasn't able to solve a single one in 2008, according to these DPS statistics. Frisco only cleared 13% of its 15 reported rapes, and McKinney 29% of its 51 reported cases.

Similarly our clearance rates for burglaries are much lower than other jurisdictions. Nationwide, the police were able to solve 12.5% of the reported burglaries, in Texas the rate was 10%, but in Collin County only 7% of our 3,602 reported burglaries were cleared. A statistically small but dramatic example can be found in the small town of Lavon. They were able to close none of their 8 burglaries, which given the small population caused the burglary rate to be 1,900.2 per 100,000.

Less dramatically, but of more importance was Frisco's 4% clearance rate on 503 burglaries, Allen's 4% of 298 cases, and McKinney's 5% on 504 reports. The Sheriff's office matched the county average at 10% of its 384 reports and Plano solved 9% of 1,550 burglaries.

Collin County selected crime clearance rates compared to other jurisdictions

Bill

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Data Sources:

United States Department of Justice, FBI report on 2008 Crime in the United States

The Texas Department of Public Safety, Crime in Texas 2008

The Texas Department of Public Safety, Crime in Texas 2007

United States Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics

Other Sources:

Grits for Breakfast, September 25, 2007, "'Clearance Rates' for serious crime disturbingly low"

The Dallas Morning News, September 28, 2008, "Crime clearance rates show Dallas police's success varies"