Violent crime is down over 30% compared to last year, according to D.C. police data. It’s a trend that city leaders attribute to increasing officers’ visibility in crime-prone communities and the bump in community members calling police with information that’s helping them close cases.
There have been 176 homicides this year, compared to 247 last year, according to police data. That’s nearly a 30% drop. Carjackings, meanwhile, are down 48%, and armed carjackings are down 52%.
The drop in several crimes comes after Mayor Muriel Bowser, D.C. Council members and Police Chief Pamela Smith spent months trying to figure out the most effective way to crack down on crime and reverse alarming trends that emerged after the peak of the pandemic. This spring, the Council approved Secure D.C., a sweeping legislative package that spanned several topics, including retail theft and drug-free zones.
But D.C. police’s intentional approach to targeting crime-prone neighborhoods is also paying off, according to Andre Wright, the department’s executive assistant chief over patrol operations.
“Are the things that we’re doing (making) you feel safe? Where you walk your dogs and where you play with your kids on playgrounds,” Wright said. “We start to ask those questions, and the feedback, overwhelmingly, has been, ‘We feel safer.'”
The department, Wright said, has been deliberate about putting officers in locations where data suggests crimes will occur. In collaboration with other city agencies, officers communicate with local leaders and then craft a plan.
As part of its Targeted Homicide Reduction Through Intervention and Violent Elimination (THRIVE) program, the department is working in specific communities, such as Anacostia, Rosedale and Washington Highlands.
“We’ve seen double digit reductions in all of those communities,” Wright said.
Officers have been attending community meetings that include religious and business leaders, and as part of Smith’s Robbery Suppression Initiative, officers are allowed to operate outside their assigned districts.
There’s also been an increase in community members contacting police detectives, Wright said, “letting us know what they saw.”
“Because we have such extreme focus, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, then we get to know the players,” Wright said. “We get to really drill down into what some of the issues are.”
The department, he said, has also been aggressive in trying to deter and respond to crime since the start of the year, instead of planning for a summer crime initiative.
“The result is that the neighbors are happy,” Wright said. “They really talk to us about, not just the robberies, but the quality-of-life issues, people drinking in public, people using homes for party and drug use, smoking in public — that kind of thing. And so we really focused on that as well.”
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