Less crime in Denton in first two months of 2017 than last year
The community crime map, found on the Denton Police Department’s website, crimes in Denton in the first two months of 2016 and only 916 in the first two months of 2017. This represents a decrease in all charges other than burglary from motor vehicles.
The most common charges, according to the crime map, include 150 assaults, 137 thefts, 101 burglaries from motor vehicles, 98 arrests related to drugs/narcotics and 88 shoplifting charges.
Those are 62.7 percent of all crimes reported in the first two months of the year.
Denton Police public information officer Shane Kizer said because Denton has UNT, Texas Woman’s University and North Central Texas College nearby, he sees mostly alcohol and intoxication-related charges.
“The most common that we get are alcohol and traffic related, that’s kind of general. You have public intoxication, you have driving while intoxicated, you have assaults and various things that happen when people are intoxicated,” Kizer said. “Young people like to drink, and that brings the undesirable things along with getting intoxicated.”
2017 saw a decrease of alcohol violations by 6.6 percent since last year, with a total of 56 charges compared to 127 in the same months of 2016.
“Hopefully the colleges are helping educate students to drink responsibly,” Kizer said.
Burglary from motor vehicles charges showed an increase of 2.9 percent, this being the only charge with an increase. There were 101 burglaries from motor vehicles in January and February of 2017 and 82 in January and February of 2016.
There are no charges of sexual assault, homicide, attempted homicide or death investigations to date.
To avoid any more issues at bars, Denton Police has officers who patrol the Fry Street area as well.
How does it work?
Law enforcement agencies keep detailed records about each incident that occurs in their jurisdiction. When an incident happens, the officer that responded to the incident writes a detailed report including the location, people involved, related vehicles and other useful information.
This information is stored in large, secure databases within each law enforcement agency. These databases can vary between department in structure and complexity, and even the data itself can follow different standards to describe the event. Kizer said based on records, the trends in crimes change based on the situations.
“When you go to a specific month, those numbers can spike greatly,” Kizer said. “We usually look at quarterly or annually and the numbers tend to stay the same.”
How to find the data
The LexisNexis Community Crime map is a software available on the Denton Police website. The map is made possible through data updates from different law enforcement agents.
City of Denton numbers were provided by Lewisville Police Department and Denton Police Department. Data as far back as 2013 is available, and is uploaded daily.
A search can filter the charges, the dates and the location, with a reach of up to 500 crimes per screen. Data analysis is also provided, and anybody can upload to receive daily uploads to an email.
According to LexisNexis: “Community Crime Map, connects law enforcement with the community to reduce crime and improve public safety.”
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