12 Comments

While everyone including myself appreciates your hard work on this substack, I think you need to really consider the possibility that this is a blip. It is very easy for a new chief to temporarily pump up arrest and proactivity stats by retasking officers and handing out overtime, even in the most troubled cities. They do this specifically to impress politicians and journalists like you, making a big show of getting immediate results. The question is whether the new approach is sustainable. If the answer is "no" then eventually something will happen - a high profile use of force incident, or simply burnout from officers working too much overtime - that brings things back to the status quo. Given that the numbers you are posting here are still nowhere near pre-2020 numbers, it seems likely the answer is "no" - this bump looks exactly like the kind of temporary blip you get from throwing together a new proactive unit and tossing money at it, without any change in the wider department.

Sustianable improvement in proactivity will require improving officer working conditions, which will require revisiting some of the dumbest "reforms" of 2020. As you noted, some of that is already happening - the poorly written neck restraint law needed to go. But it is wrong to think that those changes are not necessary.

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This is fantastic analysis and it's nice to read good news for a change.

One interesting thing I noted is that the number of additional people in detention (~500 or so) is about the same as the number of serious crimes reported each month. So given how concentrated crime is, I would guess the incapacitation of an extra 500 or so likely-criminals might be enough to make a real dent in crime all by itself, even without the extra benefits of deterrence.

Somewhat off-topic - but is anyone aware of good economic analysis on crime? The last time there was a shooting in my area, I started thinking about all the extra economic costs the area had to bear: Extra pay for police, EMTs, courtrooms, the expense of housing an inmate, the hospital bills for the victim, loss of labor from both the shooter and victim, shops in the area closing for the day and traffic rerouted, potential disinvestment and mental health costs, etc etc etc.

It seems like it would add up to a lot. So I was wondering if crime waves can directly cause economic stagnation or even collapse and crime reduction the opposite. It would be interesting to see the actual costs of a single shooting once it's all added up.

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Yes, I think the large increase in detention (which seems to be concentrated in people accused of violent crime and some firearms offenses) is likely helping incapacitate some people.

Here's 1 cost estimate for gun violence:

https://costofviolence.org/reports/washington-dc/

It's a hard question though. Some of those costs are picked up by the Feds so it's not exactly the same as money flowing out of DC. I don't think it attempts to model the downstream economic costs of crime/violence stunting growth.

I do think generally speaking DC's boom in the 2000s and 2010s was boosted by falling crime rates. There are distributional questions of who benefits (say renters vs. property owners) from that growth but overall crime reduction has an economic impact that is sadly very hard to quantify.

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That link is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you! I haven't had time to go though it thoroughly yet, and I understand it's only a ballpark estimate, but knowing a single shooting is in the general ballpark of costing 1-3 million is extremely interesting and useful for thinking about public safety priorities. When I have time I want to try to see if I can break it down by "who bears the cost".

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This is a good read. The importance of leadership and prosecutor’s office really matters. People respond to incentives. I have been saying that failure to punish bad actions creates a sense of impunity and thus more bad actions for a while. We see this with school discipline, corruption, and petty crime.

Funny thing is I also witnessed an arrest at a CVS for shoplifting last week.

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With respect to your statement that "the massive increases in arrests and decreases in crime have nothing to do with this new legislation" I'd like to offer a complementary explanation and see if you have thoughts:

1) In the pre-COVID and in the aftermath of Floyd, public opinion and opinions of élites (e.g. activists, Democratic party base members, council staff, and council members themselves) generally held an honest belief the justice system was too strict and the police too active;

2) Responding to those beliefs, the police and prosecutors changed their behavior to back off aggressive enforcement in a number of ways;

3) As a result of the above, the likelihood of an arrest + conviction plummeted;

4) Crime went up. Way, way up. (Only partially because of the above);

5) Higher crime reversed public opinion described in 1) above. The public, activists, and élites generally changed their views about desirable levels of enforcement. This took time, and public opinion changed long before élite opinion, but the reversal of 1) was occurring across the board;

6) MPD responded to changes in public opinion. The Council is also changing course in response to changing public opinion.

(In a way, this is a steelman version of the vibes-based theory of crime)

In this version of events, the new legislation and MPD's increased enforcement activity are both caused by changes in public opinion. If this theory is correct, I think the statement that "legislation had nothing to do" with MPD's shift takes on a slightly different implication.

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Thanks very much for this!

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Joe, you note that the dramatic increase in arrests happened before Secure DC was passed. I do agree that data indicates Chief Smith is probably one of the biggest factors in more effective policing, but I wonder if the 2023 summer crime bill merits a little more credit than you give it. It’s possible the passing of that bill, expanding pretrial detention and expanding criteria for MPD to conduct vehicular pursuits for example, began breaking the negative feedback loop. As you said, it takes considerable time for a large organization with negative morale to turn around. It will be interesting to see where the data indicates 6 months after Secure DC. At least there is progress. We do need greater transparency to provide data on why USAO declines cases, how they are working with MPD if there were evidence or procedural issues, and a fully operational crime lab.

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If the Summer crime bill's impact on morale is what drove MPD to be more proactive (and I think you're saying that that is in combination with Chief Smith's efforts) that's concerning on it's own. Crime had already spiked by the time that legislation passed so the notion that MPD was holding back in some way consciously to build pressure for their preferred political outcome would be a serious allegation. I generally lean towards the operational shakeup at MPD nudging people to be more proactive as well as simply deploying officers to the spots/times with more crime.

Regarding vehicular pursuits the policy stakes there were quite small. MPD has had limitations on vehicular pursuits at least back to Chief Lanier's day. The Council codified those limitations in the 2020 police reform bill and the Summer bill relaxed them slightly. We don't have data on how many pursuits have happened before/after the bill and it seems like the key innovation has instead been greater use of MPD's helicopter:

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/dc-police-take-to-the-skies-to-solve-carjackings/3524338/

...and of course they could get even MORE aerial capabilities if DC/Congress could sort out the regs to let MPD use drones/UAVs.

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You have a chart in this post that describes the "negative feedback loop." The fact that a major political signal can break that feedback loop in no way implies coordination on the part of MPD before the legislation in question was passed.

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The crime bill and additional funding does signal political support and cover for more policing. It is possible that anticipation for these bills changed behaviors of police and the priorities of police leadership.

Basically they provided a signal to coordinate.

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Maybe and it'd be great to have some sort of MPD morale survey data or something like that to gauge things but we don't.

Also technically this Fiscal Year MPD's approved budget was cut by the Mayor and passed as introduced by the Council. In reality, MPD always goes over budget so it's unclear if that cut actually meant anything but there wasn't an "increased funding" morale boost in 2023 to explain the increase in arrests.

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