It can be painful and hard to understand when your life is touched by crime of any kind. But the D.C. region is seeing double-digit decreases in incidents of crime, according to information presented Thursday to the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments.
There was a 22% drop in serious offenses, such as murder, rape, robbery, arson and grand larceny, reflected in the five years of data between 2014 and 2018, “which is pretty significant,” said Arlington County police Chief Jay Farr, the chair of the COG Police Chiefs Committee.
“Last year alone, property crime in the region dropped by 11%,” Farr said. “That’s a pretty amazing number because property crime is one of the most prevalent crimes [in] any of the municipalities – we’re all dealing with property crime.”
COG’s Police Chiefs Committee includes departments from 24 area towns, counties and cities along with agencies including the state police of Maryland and Virginia, FBI, the Military District of Washington, WMATA and MWAA.
Farr said many factors might be contributing to the drop in crime rates, including the economy. But he added that there’s been a shift in policing philosophy from arrests and enforcement to prevention and community engagement.
In addition to a new focus on identifying and preventing potential problems, Farr credits responses to crime and how departments share information and use technology to investigate crimes.
“If you were looking at a chart, you’d see a population chart that continues to rise and you’d see crime numbers that continue to go down — which is pretty amazing in an urban metropolitan area,” Farr said.
Specific breakdowns of data between jurisdictions may not provide directly relatable comparisons because Maryland, D.C. and Virginia each use different data entry and reporting systems.
Also, protocols for reporting incidents may be specific to various departments. Some, for example, might list all sex crimes under the category of rape. They may provide in-depth descriptions instead of incident summaries.
In the near future, Farr said, it’s expected that the FBI will ask all departments to comply with the National Incident Based Reporting System, a uniform standard for collecting and reporting data already in use in most of Virginia.
You can find the full crime trends report on the COG website.
