Waco crime down in 2023, Chief Victorian says

During a city council meeting Tuesday, Victorian gave a presentation outlining the Waco Police Department’s statistics and operations for 2023 compared to past years and gave an outline of the department’s goals moving forward. Victorian presented figures showing violent crimes were down 10.8% and nonviolent crimes were down 14.8%, for an overall 14.3% decrease last year compared to 2022.

According to presentation slides from the meeting, violent and nonviolent crime saw an increase in 2021 before trending downward over the past two years. 2021 saw 2,757 instances of violent crime and 19,376 instances of nonviolent crime. 2022 saw 2,560 instances of violent crime and 19,057 instances of nonviolent crime. Last year saw 2,283 instances of violent crime and 16,239 instances of nonviolent crime.

Despite the decreases, Victorian said the Waco Police Department is still dismayed that more than 2,000 people were victims of a violent crime in 2023, and she said the department is working to decrease that number even more within the next few years.

One of the main things Victorian credits for the decrease in crime is the department’s efforts in creating community engagement through relational policing, which she said is a crime prevention method where officers get out into the community to participate in events to build trust between officers and the community.

“We’ve used relational policing to connect with our community and build trust,” Victorian said. “We believe in taking a holistic approach to addressing crime, and that includes use of prevention, intervention and apprehension.”

Some events that officers participated in include a back-to-school bash at Richland Mall, National Night Out, Halloween “Trunk or Treat” events and Red Ribbon Week. Victorian also said the department launched the Unidos Waco program early last year, which encourages engagement with Spanish-speaking members of the Waco community.

Other crime statistics presented to the city council show a decrease in the number of reported lost or stolen firearms, from 308 in 2022 to 198 last year, with the number of firearms recovered remaining about the same, at 556 in 2022 and 529 last year. The number of 911 and nonemergency calls to police also decreased year over year, from 346,259 to 260,609.

Victorian also said the number of shots-fired calls has decreased by 26% year over year and by 36% compared to 2021. She said the overall number of shootings in Waco in 2023 was 36, compared to 46 in 2022 and 60 in 2021.

Victorian also said dispatch response times has decreased, with 80% of calls being answered within 20 seconds. She said dispatch has made it a goal for next year to increase that number to 80% within 15 seconds.

Eric Connolly, a criminologist and associate professor at Sam Houston State University, told the Tribune-Herald last month that community engagement has been a big part of an overall decrease in violent crime throughout the United States.

Connolly said elsewhere in Texas, violent crime is down in San Antonio, Fort Worth and Houston, while numbers in Austin have remained the same as last year. Meanwhile, Dallas and El Paso have seen increases in violent crime, especially gun violence, he said.

Crime decreased in most major cities nationwide in 2023, Connolly said, with Washington D.C. and Memphis being outliers.

Despite social media buzz about retail theft and car burglaries in big cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco, Connolly said the number of property crimes has actually decreased, apart from an uptick in auto thefts.