City of Dallas Launches Domestic Violence Dashboard

It's a crime that can go unnoticed, but the City of Dallas is trying to shine a light on it.

City leaders have launched a new online dashboard that tracks domestic violence in the city.

The rollout has perfect timing as October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

The interactive dashboard breaks the data down by demographics like age and race and pinpoints where more violence and abuse is happening. The maps show concentrations in parts of south, east, and west Dallas, especially within Black and Hispanic communities. However, no neighborhood or zip code is untouched.

"So what that tells us is that we're all in this together. It impacts all of us, no matter what neighborhood where you live, what your ethnicity is," said Jan Langbein, CEO of the Genesis Women's Shelter and Support.

And while a majority of the victims are women, 27 percent are male.

Dallas continues to run neck and neck with the Houston area on intimate partner homicides, with 12 deaths so far this year. 2021 had a total of 17 deaths and 2020 had 16 deaths.

Two of the region's largest domestic violence shelters, Genesis Women's Shelter and Support and The Family Place, helped to supply city of Dallas with much of the data it needed to create the dashboard. The Dallas County District Attorney's Office and Dallas police help to fill in the rest.

"People who break the law in their homes, more than likely are breaking the law out on the streets," said Langbein.

The City of Dallas Domestic Violence Task Force, which has been around for almost 40 years, teamed up with the Office of Data Analytics and Business Intelligence to supply the workforce to put all the data together.

"Social service agencies like Genesis Women's Shelter and Support, we don't have the resources or the IT people and the statisticians to help us pull together relevant information," Langbein said. "These brilliant minds down in that Data Analysis Office were able to put it together in a way that I think is very user friendly. So whether you are a service provider, or law enforcement, or just someone who is concerned about the safety of your city, it's right there at your fingertips."

To that point, Langbein said this will now help nonprofits know where to disperse more help and resources, as well as give them more solid footing in applying for financial aid.

"What this can do now that we have access to this, is when we go for grants or we're trying to get secure funding for our agencies, we can say now, ‘Look, this is where it's happening. This is to whom it is happening,'" she said. "It's great information."

The city says their goals are to raise awareness, measure domestic violence crime trends over time, and hopefully find more ways to support victims.

"I think this data will be surprising to some," Langbein said. "I hope it is a message to survivors that there is help and there is hope."

The dashboard also features tabs at the top of the page for District Attorney data, such as the outcomes and types of cases, as well as information from the shelters on the amount of bed space available, calls made, and texts received from victims seeking help.

On Tuesday, city staff will present this new domestic violence dashboard to the public safety committee.

Click here to see the dashboard. City officials said it will be constantly updated. That link also has hotline numbers and victim resources for anyone who needs help.

To reach Genesis Shelter, call or text 214-946-HELP (4357).

To contact The Family Place, dial 214-941-1991 for the 24-hour crisis hotline.