HOUSTON – Nearly 23,000 violent crimes were reported in the city of Houston in 2018, city officials announced Monday. That’s a more than 10 percent drop overall compared to 2017.
The drop happened even though the city was "hundreds of officers short,” Police Chief Art Acevedo said. “Despite that, we saw a 10.4 percent decrease in violent crime, which is huge. Think about that.”
Homicides went up by 10 over 2017 to 279 in 2018. Reported aggravated assaults, robberies and rapes were all down in 2018.
“Our robberies in the city of Houston were down for the fourth straight year,” Acevedo said. “We experienced a 10.1 percent drop in robberies in the city of Houston, which equates to 1,000 fewer robbery victims."
Overall reported violent crime went down in 2015 compared to 2014. It increased in 2016 and 2017 year over year, and then fell last year.
Homicides decreased in 2016 compared to 2015, and again in 2017. Acevedo said the increase last year was largely due to a sharp increase in gang and domestic violence homicides.
The number of reported nonviolent crimes overall fell in 2018 to 93,896 compared to 96,596 in 2017. The only category of nonviolent crime that increased last year was auto theft.
“When children are murdered, when people feel unsafe in their neighborhoods, it’s no time for us to relax our public safety work or rest on our accomplishments,” Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said. “But, reported crimes continue to fall in the city of Houston.”