Multiple datasets related to Houston Police Department Crime Stats

As a contribution to nationwide efforts to more thoroughly understand urban violence, this study was conducted to assess the impact of cultural dynamics on homicide rates in Houston, Texas, and to profile homicides in the city from 1985 to 1994. This data collection provides the results of quantitative analysis of data collected from all Houston homicide cases recorded in the police murder logs for 1985-1994. Variables describe the homicide circumstances, the victim-offender relationship, the type of weapon used, and any drug- or gang-related activity involved. Other variables include the year and month in which the homicide occurred, whether the homicide occurred on a weekday or over the weekend, the motive of the homicide, whether the homicide was drug-related, whether the case was cleared by police at time of data entry, weapon type and means of killing, the relationship between the victim and the offender, whether a firearm was the homicide method, whether it was a multiple victim incident or multiple offender incident, whether the victim or the offender was younger than age 15, and the inter-racial relationship between the victim and the offender. Demographic variables include age, sex, and race of the victim as well as the offender.

These data were prepared in conjunction with a project using Bureau of Labor Statistics data (not provided with this collection) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program data to examine the relationship between unemployment and violent crime. Three separate time-series data files were created as part of this project: a national time series (Part 1), a state time series (Part 2), and a time series of data for 12 selected cities: Baltimore, Buffalo, Chicago, Columbus, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Newark, New York City, Paterson (New Jersey), and Philadelphia (Part 3). Each data file was constructed to include 82 monthly time series: 26 series containing the number of Part I (crime index) offenses known to police (excluding arson) by weapon used, 26 series of the number of offenses cleared by arrest or other exceptional means by weapon used in the offense, 26 series of the number of offenses cleared by arrest or other exceptional means for persons under 18 years of age by weapon used in the offense, a population estimate series, and three date indicator series. For the national and state data, agencies from the 50 states and Washington, DC, were included in the aggregated data file if they reported at least one month of information during the year. In addition, agencies that did not report their own data (and thus had no monthly observations on crime or arrests) were included to make the aggregated population estimate as close to Census estimates as possible. For the city time series, law enforcement agencies with jurisdiction over the 12 central cities were identified and the monthly data were extracted from each UCR annual file for each of the 12 agencies. The national time-series file contains 82 time series, the state file contains 4,083 time series, and the city file contains 963 time series, each with 228 monthly observations per time series. The unit of analysis is the month of observation. Monthly crime and clearance totals are provided for homicide, negligent manslaughter, total rape, forcible rape, attempted forcible rape, total robbery, firearm robbery, knife/cutting instrument robbery, other dangerous weapon robbery, strong-arm robbery, total assault, firearm assault, knife/cutting instrument assault, other dangerous weapon assault, simple nonaggravated assault, assaults with hands/fists/feet, total burglary, burglary with forcible entry, unlawful entry-no force, attempted forcible entry, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, auto theft, truck and bus theft, other vehicle theft, and grand total of all actual offenses.

In 2020, Memphis, TN-MS-AR reported 1,358.8 violent crimes per 100,000 inhabitants, the most out of any metro area in the United States. Monroe, LA followed closely behind, with a violent crime rate of 1,308.5 crimes per 100,000 inhabitants.