Monthly Update: Crime fell 12% in March

Welcome news but concerning trends with gun crimes specifically

With March’s crime data fully loaded in DC Crime Cards we can see how last month compared to February and other benchmarks:

• Overall crimes-per-day fell by 12% in March compared to February

  • Property crime, which is ~84% of reported crimes, fell by 15%

  • Violent crime unfortunately rose by 4%, driven by a 20% increase in crimes with guns

• Wards 2, 3 and 1 had the largest monthly decreases in crime; with reductions in both property crime and violent crime

• Homicide fell in March but remains above both last year’s rate and the pre-COVID baseline

  • The net increase in homicide in 2023 year-to-date (YTD) is primarily due to a 92% increase in Ward 8

• Crime fell by 26% cross the 11 Business Improvement Districts (BIDs)

• MPD added 17 Detectives in March while total sworn officer staffing shrunk by 14

For monthly comparisons I’m converting the # of crimes into “Crimes Per Day” to account for months having different #s of days (and therefore a slight skew in the number of crimes):

• Most kinds of crimes/offenses fell in March with the unfortunate exceptions of robbery & assault with a dangerous weapon

  • March continued the trend of a growing share of violent crimes being committed with guns. Non-gun violent crime actually fell but violent crime with guns rose. As a result, in March 63% of all violent crimes involved guns. Illegal guns are a huge problem this is why low prosecution rates for gun possession crimes are such a concern.

• The “Pre-COVID Baseline” here is 2015-2019. The pandemic and associated disruptions in 2020 changed crime rates a lot so it’s a useful comparison.

  • Most offenses are less common today than pre-COVID with the key exceptions of homicide (+47%), violent crimes with guns (+34%) and motor vehicle theft (+167%). Notably, these are traumatic and/or high visibility crimes.

At the Ward level, March’s welcome reduction in reported crimes was concentrated in Wards 3, 2 and 1:

Homicides remain incredibly concentrated in a few wards and the change from 2022 to 2023 is heavily driven by a 92% increase in Ward 8. Recall that when we reviewed homicides that Ward 8 also had a slightly below-average arrest rate for homicide:

In most neighborhoods crime rates are pretty stable from month-to-month. When we compare February vs. March crime data at the Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) level we see a very strong correlation:

About 15% of March’s crimes took place in one of the District’s 11 Business Improvement Districts (BIDs). Almost all of the BIDs saw lower crime rates in March and the 26% reduction in crime in the BIDs was larger than the 9% reduction in the parts of DC outside of the BIDs:

I do want to address the common online sentiment that crime data is “fake” when trends look positive:

• Trends in reported crime data are generally reliable. While some crimes go unreported and some reported crimes may be fabricated these are issues that apply to all periods of time and wouldn’t change much from February to March. The 12% reduction in reported crimes-per-day from February to March is real.

  • "Positive trend” also doesn’t mean that everything is fine. It just means that March was a relative improvement on February.

• It’s also incredibly unlikely that MPD is deliberately and systematically “undercounting” the crime statistics month-to-month. While there’s opportunity for bias, there are internal data audit mechanisms in place and if anything there are as many incentives for MPD to “overcount” as to “undercount.” I would be very surprised if there was systematic data manipulation and that fact somehow didn’t leak to the DC Police Union or media and become a major scandal.

It’s also worth remembering that month-to-month changes in crime have very little to do with big-picture policy debates. There were no changes in laws regarding policing or sentencing from February to March. MPD’s staffing only changed by -0.4%. I do have 2 narrow hypotheses to explain some of the changes:

• Some localized decreases in crime seem to be related to MPD arresting serial burglars/thieves. The Adams Morgan BID had a 47% decrease in crime and that corresponds with MPD making several arrests of suspects accused of many property crimes.

• I suspect (but can’t prove) that motor vehicle theft may be declining as Kia/Hyundai owners take steps to make their (very vulnerable) cars more difficult to steal and the youth social media environment that glamorized motor vehicle theft moves on to something else.

  • I know '“Tiktok encouraged carjacking” sounds too dumb to be true but MPD and criminal experts across the country agree that it’s a major factor in the recent increase in motor vehicle theft. Social media taught (mostly) kids how to steal cars effectively and then glamorized that act.

  • Even though March was better than February, motor vehicle theft is still much higher than it was last year and pre-COVID

Lastly, I wanted to recognize that it appears MPD did a round of promotions to Detective between February and March. MPD’s staffing reports show an increase in the # of detectives from 306 in February to 323 in March; an increase of 17 (+5.5%). I couldn’t find any public announcement so I could be wrong but a batch of promotions seems like the most likely explanation for the change in the # of detectives. In any case, congratulations to MPD’s newest detectives and best of luck in your new roles!