Houston’s mayoral candidates say crime is getting worse. The numbers say otherwise.

[Elderberry]

Houston Chronicle by  St. John Barned-Smith and Jasper Scherer 9/14/2019

Mayor Sylvester Turner had just wrapped up his annual “State of the City” address in May when, two floors down at the Marriott Marquis hotel, mayoral candidate Tony Buzbee launched into his own speech deriding the mayor’s record on crime.

“I know what’s going on in this city,” Buzbee said. “Don’t tell me crime is going down when everybody across the country knows that Houston is one of the most dangerous cities in the United States.”

Bill King, another prominent mayoral contender, has decried a “growing randomness and violence to crime that alarms people.”

While experts say such arguments aren’t unusual for political challengers, the numbers largely say otherwise. Like the rest of the country, crime in Houston has plummeted over the last 30 years, as has residents’ fear of crime being the city’s most pressing problem. FBI data show that most categories of crime in Houston have fallen or remained stagnant during Turner’s term, which began in January 2016. Criminologists also scoff at the claim that Houston is among the country’s most dangerous cities.

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