Crime Statistics: CHL v. General Population
Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 2:22 pm
CHLs have proven themselves to be responsible and law-abiding and the public deserves to know that the unscrupulous scare tactics used by opponents of campus-carry and other pro-CHL measures are refuted by clear and convincing evidence.
An Excel spreadsheet showing the data related to convictions of Texas CHLs and the general population in Texas over age 21 years is attached. All of the initial work was done by a UT engineering student who worked for me one summer. As you can see, she did a tremendous job putting this together. Just getting accurate population numbers for people age 21 yrs. and over wasn’t easy. Not only did she do all of the research, she chose the presentation method and put it all together. We all owe her our appreciation, as this data was be used extensively in every Texas Legislative Session. Thanks Allison! (BTW, she’s the baby sister of one of our TexasCHLforum members.)
The data is presented in three different formats for both CHLs and the general population; Convictions Per 100,000; Total Convictions; and Percentage of Convictions (% of target population). There is a separate page showing the population by age group.
To most folks, the crimes per 100,000 is the most meaningful and easiest to use for comparison. There are a lot of people who don’t appreciate that a difference of one, two or three decimal places in a comparison of a population nearing 20 million people is absolutely huge, so that’s why crimes per 100,000 is the most commonly used presentation method.
The [url=http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/rsd/chl/re ... vrates.htm[/url] set out on their website are presented in detail, but without a summary to aid review. The attached spreadsheets have both a summary sheet categorized for related crimes, as well as all of the individual detailed crimes set out on the DPS reports. This presentation format was chosen to aid review and comparison, while making it possible to verify that every crime reported by DPS is included in this spreadsheet.
UPDATED FOR 2015:
The numbers just keep getting better! For 2015, Texas Licensees are 21 times less likely to commit a crime than is the general population (GP).
Remember, the crime figures for the general population published by the DPS are for person age 21 years and over. That's the only way to make a comparison with Licensees. Therefore, the crime figures posted will be different from the overall crime stats for the State, because those will include people who are between 17 and 20 years of age. In other words, the DPS data and my analysis are conservative because the total number of crimes for the general population would be higher if they included crimes committed by people in the 17 - 20 year old bracket.
Here are some examples of what the data show for the most recent calendar year - 2015:
In 2015, there were 937,419 active CHLs, representing an increase of 111,462, yet LTCs had only 108 total convictions.
Overall - The general population is over 21 times more likely to commit any offense listed by DPS as are LTCs
Assault - The general population is over 34 times more likely to commit an assault as are CHLs
Burglary - The general population over age 21 is almost 169 times more likely to commit a burglary as are CHLs
Chas.
An Excel spreadsheet showing the data related to convictions of Texas CHLs and the general population in Texas over age 21 years is attached. All of the initial work was done by a UT engineering student who worked for me one summer. As you can see, she did a tremendous job putting this together. Just getting accurate population numbers for people age 21 yrs. and over wasn’t easy. Not only did she do all of the research, she chose the presentation method and put it all together. We all owe her our appreciation, as this data was be used extensively in every Texas Legislative Session. Thanks Allison! (BTW, she’s the baby sister of one of our TexasCHLforum members.)
The data is presented in three different formats for both CHLs and the general population; Convictions Per 100,000; Total Convictions; and Percentage of Convictions (% of target population). There is a separate page showing the population by age group.
To most folks, the crimes per 100,000 is the most meaningful and easiest to use for comparison. There are a lot of people who don’t appreciate that a difference of one, two or three decimal places in a comparison of a population nearing 20 million people is absolutely huge, so that’s why crimes per 100,000 is the most commonly used presentation method.
The [url=http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/rsd/chl/re ... vrates.htm[/url] set out on their website are presented in detail, but without a summary to aid review. The attached spreadsheets have both a summary sheet categorized for related crimes, as well as all of the individual detailed crimes set out on the DPS reports. This presentation format was chosen to aid review and comparison, while making it possible to verify that every crime reported by DPS is included in this spreadsheet.
UPDATED FOR 2015:
The numbers just keep getting better! For 2015, Texas Licensees are 21 times less likely to commit a crime than is the general population (GP).
Remember, the crime figures for the general population published by the DPS are for person age 21 years and over. That's the only way to make a comparison with Licensees. Therefore, the crime figures posted will be different from the overall crime stats for the State, because those will include people who are between 17 and 20 years of age. In other words, the DPS data and my analysis are conservative because the total number of crimes for the general population would be higher if they included crimes committed by people in the 17 - 20 year old bracket.
Here are some examples of what the data show for the most recent calendar year - 2015:
In 2015, there were 937,419 active CHLs, representing an increase of 111,462, yet LTCs had only 108 total convictions.
Overall - The general population is over 21 times more likely to commit any offense listed by DPS as are LTCs
Assault - The general population is over 34 times more likely to commit an assault as are CHLs
Burglary - The general population over age 21 is almost 169 times more likely to commit a burglary as are CHLs
Chas.