Homicide in DC

Where is it happening and why can't we stop it?

One of the most frustrating and heartbreaking trends in DC is that the decrease in overall violent crime has not led to a reduction in homicides. Some people take this as evidence that “MPD’s stats are fake” but there are much better explanations for why this is happening:

• Criminals are using guns more. This makes the crimes to do occur much deadlier and as a result more people are dying.

  • DC averaged about 130 “violent crimes with a gun” monthly from 2017-2019 and this has risen to about 185 a month for 2021-2023 (so far).

  • Before 2020, about 35% of violent crimes involved guns, now it’s over 50% of violent crimes

• The large reduction in violent crimes without guns is an objectively good thing (many fewer people are being victimized) but that hasn’t reduced the homicide rate very much.

• We actually have excellent information about who is most likely to be involved in violence but the programs to reach those people (and prevent future violence) have had significant implementation struggles.

MPD tends to report out “Violent Crime” as a category but when we look at the crimes that included a gun vs. all others we see a huge long-term reduction in non-gun violet crime but a relatively flat trend (with an uptick after 2020) in violent crime with guns:

This matters because “Violent Crimes with a Gun” are much more likely to devolve into a homicide because guns are so much deadlier than other weapons. In addition to an attacker being more likely to “succeed” in killing their intended target with a gun, there’s much greater risk of escalation and to bystanders when guns are the weapon of choice (as opposed to knives). Unfortunately, we’re seeing this increased use of guns across most categories of violent crime:

There is good reason to believe that COVID and the resulting disruptions has something to do with this. The largest spike in gun crimes in recent years occurred right after COVID hit. Obviously COVID isn’t driving the higher rates now but it’s possible that the societal disruption of COVID, and how criminals reacted, has pushed us to a worse equilibrium where more criminals are carrying guns and using them more.

So far in 2023 the homicide rate is higher than it was during same months in 2022. The increase is very uneven across DC, with wards 8, 4 and 6 seeing the worst changes. Over 60% of all homicides in 2023 have taken place in wards 7 and 8.

One of the most frustrating aspects of this problem is that we actually have very good information about who is causing the vast majority of gun crimes and homicides. DC commissioned an excellent report by the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform that identified “there are at least 500 identifiable people who rise to this level of very high risk, and likely no more than 200 at any one given time. These individuals comprise approximately 60-70% of all gun violence in the District.” This report leveraged an impressive amount of information about shooting suspects and victims and used a combination of pretty common-sense risk factors:

• Significant prior arrest history: “86 percent of homicide victims and suspects were known to the criminal justice system” and “most victims and suspects with prior criminal offenses had been arrested about 11 times for about 13 different offenses by the time of the homicide.”

  • 46% of homicide suspects had previously been incarcerated

  • “76% of homicide suspects had active or prior supervision”

• Involvement in gangs or crews: “50-57 percent of identified suspects were group-involved”

Notably, these and other risk factors are things that we can know about people and try to intervene before they end up killing someone or become a victim themselves. This was the entire point of the “People of Promise” program. Unfortunately, the program has really struggled. From the Washington Post’s review in October:

“The city has yet to reach about half of those on its “People of Promise” list, and a top official graded the program as a C-plus.”

Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to have been much progress since October. “People of Promise” is part of the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (ONSE) and in their latest oversight responses to the DC Council it’s clear the program is still understaffed with only 6 of 15 positions filled:

This isn’t DC’s only violence prevention program but when the objective is reaching the few hundred people who are driving “60-70% of all gun violence in the District” making this program work ought to be a high priority. The few metrics the program reported aren’t very encouraging:

• Just 42 out of 198 (or 21%) People of Promise have been “connected” with subsidized or unsubsidized employment (and “connected” does not necessarily mean “still employed”)

• Workers “Logged over 240 service connections (positive music studio time, GED

  programming, vital record assistance, etc).” but that is only 1.2 per person. For this group of people with significant prior arrest history and a lot of challenges they likely need a lot more referrals/connections to get on a better path.

• Workers also did “over 1,900 engagements (safety check-ins, informal counseling, small-group activities, etc.)” which is a healthier 9.6 engagements per participant. But the fact that this isn’t translating into even subsidized employment for most program participants is a big red flag.

DC’s track record with converting enrollment in these programs into stable employment (which would greatly lessen the risk of these individuals engaging in violent crime) is not encouraging. In the similar “Pathways Program” (also under ONSE) only 47% of participants ever got subsidized jobs and only 18% have found unsubsidized jobs (and this is during an unusually-good labor market). We know from successful individual graduates of these kinds of programs that they can be life-changing but we have not been able to scale up those results.

Homicide and gun violence are wicked problems but we’re really talking about ~200 identifiable people that are driving the bulk of the problem.

• Our prison and court surveillance systems are failing to deter recidivism by these individuals with lengthy arrest records

• The dedicated program to help these identified individuals turn their lives around is failing to reach most of them

• Knowing who these people are hasn’t translated into MPD being able to prevent their recidivism either

This has to be something that our government and community can tackle and I hope that there is more public scrutiny and oversight of these critical programs.