HOUSTON—Suburban communities care deeply about their public images. It’s often how they sell themselves to prospective homebuyers and companies looking to relocate: the image of having not just better schools than in Houston, but lower crime. But just how safe are the suburbs?
11News got four years of crime data (2006-2009) from 10 of the area’s biggest suburbs, then hired the National Institute for Computer-Assisted reporting to analyze it. The result: many of Houston’s suburbs do live up to their desired image, but some do not.
We ranked them high, low and in the middle.
Total crime was highest in Humble, Missouri City, Conroe and Baytown, which all had rates similar to the city of Houston. Lowest for total crime were Friendswood and Sugar Land. In the middle were Katy, Pasadena, Pearland and The Woodlands.
For violent crimes, the group with the highest rates included Conroe, Baytown, Humble and Missouri City. All had violent crime rates similar to Houston’s.
The lowest for violent crime were Sugar Land, Pasadena and Friendswood.
In the middle were Katy, Pearland and The Woodlands.
Officials in the suburbs that ranked high told us the results can be misleading. They point to their relatively small populations and their proximity to big malls or freeways that can generate lots of crimes and therefore might raise their crime rates.
On the other hand, suburbs like Friendswood benefit from their small size, because by comparison to their populations, they have far more officers on patrol than bigger places.
"Their visibility makes a big difference," said David Smith, Friendswood’s mayor.
Local residents told us that the perception of crime and the fear of it are big factors in where they chose to live.
"I don’t like Houston," said Baytown resident Veronica Roy.
She said crime is a big reason she chose to live in Baytown, which she considers safer (the 11News analysis found that total crime and property crime in Baytown was less than in Houston, but violent crime was slightly more).
Another Baytown resident, Lester Speights, said he moved out of Houston specifically because of the fear of crime.
"My wife was always just terrified. Let’s get out of the big city," Speights said.
How important is image to suburban governments? Consider Sugar Land. In November of 2009, crime suddenly took center stage when a man was held up at gunpoint in the driveway of his home. The man was Sugar Land’s mayor, James Thompson.
"He told me he was going to shoot me," Thompson told reporters shortly after it happened.
While that was bad enough, city officials said that in the months that followed, it seemed the media were publicizing even the most trivial of crimes that happened in and around Sugar Land.
"And as a result I think we know have a perception that crime is much worse than it actually is in Sugar Land," said Steve Griffith, the Assistant City Manager.
One way officials responded was to consider making it harder to get some crime reports from the city government website. That idea backfired when a community news website, FortBendNow.com, published a series of e-mails between local and county government officials.
"Once again, Channel 11 featured a ‘crime in Sugar Land’ segment..." said one.
Another talked about how crime data would now be hidden on the city’s website: "We have restricted access....or made it more difficult to locate."
Griffith said the e-mails made it look like Sugar Land City Hall was trying to cover up its crime.
"There’s nothing further from the truth," said Griffith who contends the e-mails were taken out of context. He said crime data is still on their website but that yes, officials felt media coverage of petty crimes distorted their image.
"I would say Sugar Land is very safe," said Griffith. And according to the data 11News analyzed, it has one of the lowest crime rates in the area.
