Crime in Downtown Austin – APD CrimeViewer
The Austin Police Department has an application on-line called CrimeViewer where you can review crimes reported in Austin. You can review at the city level, by Council District, by APD district, by zip code and by several other filters. Crimes are segregated into two FBI reporting categories, Part 1 Crimes and Part 2 Crimes. Part 1 Crimes include homicide, aggravated assault, robbery, arson, burglary, auto theft and theft. These are categories that the FBI collects detailed information on and reports at the national level. Part 2 Crimes are everything else, mostly misdemeanor crimes or non-violent crimes which are reported by top-line numbers only.
For the last few months, I have been running a CrimeViewer report on City Council District 9, where I live. This is Kathie Tovo’s district, which is the east side of downtown Austin, from just south of the river to 51st street, and mostly west of the interstate. I have also compared District 9 statistics to District 4, which is north of District 9 and includes the St. John’s neighborhood, and District 10 which is west Austin north of Lake Austin Blvd., including the Tarrytown, Northwest Hills, Great Hills and Jollyville neighborhoods.
The first thing that stands out for those of us in Downtown Austin is that the crime rate in District 9 is three times higher than in District 10. The crime rate in District 9 is comparable to the rate in District 4, which has long been known as the highest crime area in Austin. 74% of the District 9 Part 1 crimes are theft, and if you look at the detail, it is mostly vehicle break-ins. Burglary makes up 10% of Part 1 crimes in District 9 (mostly burglary of a vehicle) and auto theft is also 10%. Burglary of a residence reported under Part 2 is about 4% of reported crimes in District 9, similar to Districts 4 and 10. If you look at all property crimes, they make up about 54% of all crimes in District 9, 48% in District 4 and 66% in District 10.
With regard to violent crime (including robbery), 18% of crimes in District 9 are in this category, 20% in District 4 and 10% in District 10. Drug and alcohol related arrests account for 9% of crimes reported in District 9, 7% in District 4 and only 5% in District 10.
In summary, in District 9, the crime rate is 3 times higher than in west Austin, and violent crime is twice as high. The largest cluster of crimes reported is in the east Downtown Austin area between Cesar Chavez and 11th street south and north, and from Interstate 35 to Lamar Blvd. east and west – zip code 78701.
My question is, why are we tolerating this crime rate in District 9, and what should we do about it? If the crime rate went up in west Austin by 300%, don’t you think something would change pretty quickly? And I bet that they are complaining about the property crime rate in their neighborhoods. I do not want to hear that crime is just higher downtown, so live with it. The Austin City Council has promoted residential development in the downtown area and encouraged us to move here. We have the right to safety and security anywhere we live in the city of Austin.
I have some ideas about what we should do, but I would like to leave this as an open forum. Please provide your comments and ideas. Encourage others to visit this post and provide comments. Be polite and constructive.
Find CrimeViewer here: http://www.austintexas.gov/GIS/CrimeViewer/
Waterloo to Austin 
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