The datasets used for this presentation include two publicly-available datasets:

• Dallas Police Incident data
• Dallas 311 "Service Requests" data (Oct 1, 2020 thru Sep 30, 2025)

All data used for this study are open and publicly available at the above links. DART’s GIS route data can be found here. The location data used to build the maps are contained in each row of the Dallas Police incident data and the Dallas 311 data. The Dallas data are produced by the City of Dallas.

Notes About Crime Data

Crime data is only as good as the reporting (implicit self-selection bias). Numerous studies have observed that many crimes go unreported for a variety of reasons. So crime data, by its very nature, is generally incomplete. Further, the Dallas Police Department notes that data are "filtered" to exclude many categories and statuses of offenses.

The completeness of the police department’s data may also be affected by policy. In the summer of 2023, for example, the Dallas Police Department stopped taking 911 calls for certain categories of crime. Quantifying the effect of this decision is arguably impossible since non-reported crimes would be impossible to quantify. 

Put another way: crime data itself makes it impossible to conclude that “crime” has declined when it could simply be that “crime reporting” has declined.