CENTRAL TEXAS — Using LexisNexis's Community Crime Mapping software, Central Texas News Now performed comparisons on current and past crime rates.
In particular, comparing crimes committed during 2018 to crimes committed in 2019.
Performing these comparisons on Bryan/College Station, Waco, Temple, and Killeen, many cities saw a decrease in violent crime.
Temple had a 70 percent drop in homicide compared to this time last year, and a 50 percent drop in aggravated assaults.
Killeen, had a 33 percent drop in homicide, and a four percent drop in sexual assault.
Bryan/College Station, as well has the greater Waco area, had no data available on the LexisNexis program.
Central Texas News Now spoke with the Beverly Hills Police Department to understand how their enforcement team reports data.
"As far as our crime reports, here in Beverly Hills you'd have to go to the FBI website...that's who we report ours to, and it goes to the FBI and they print it out once a year,. But you can go to the website and pull up all of our crime information there," explained Detective Chris Hudson.
The reports Detective Hudson referred to are called Uniform Criminal Reporting Statistics (UCR), and are available to the public here.
This federally operated website breaks down crime by type and area as well as time, though the data becomes available each year.
"You can go to the FBI website and pull up the UCR, it shows all of the violent crimes, the arson, aggravated assault type crimes, it's all reported to them. As far as the sex offenders that lives in each individual city, you can go to the DPS website, it's all public record," explained Detective Hudson.
When asked where the public could get more 'real-time' crime statistics per area, Detective Hudson said, "If anyone has a question, they can call our agency. We can sit down with them and assist them."
But for those that don't live in Beverly Hills Texas, smartphone applications like Life360 were recommended.
To search your area using the same software as Central Texas News Now, click here.
