The Optimist's Case for a 2024 Comeback

What factors could lead to a safer 2024

Crime was up significantly in DC in 2023 and the District has a lot of challenges going into 2024. Reviewing the year-end data reinforces just how much worse 2023 was than 2022. We experienced a 39% increase in violent crime, a 24% increase in property crime and it wasn’t even across all types of offenses. Numerically, almost all (98%) of 2023's increase in crime was concentrated in 3 specific offenses that are both common & increased significantly in 2023:

• Robberies (including Carjackings) were up 67% and represented 20% of the total year-over-year (YOY) increase in crime

• Motor Vehicle Thefts were up 82% and represented 43% of the YOY increase

• Theft (Other i.e. not from a car) were up 23% and represented 36% of the YOY increase

In addition to the increases in these common crimes, one should also remember the 35% increase in homicides. Homicides make up just under 1% of all crimes but are the most serious and cause enormous social harms. The year-over-year changes can obscure the detail that 2023 was dominated by a Spring-Summer crime spike that did thankfully recede somewhat in the Fall and Winter.

The late 2023 decreases in crime are an important reminder that even amidst a lot of warranted pessimism about DC’s future that crime can go down. This may be obvious to some readers, but given the depressed and sometimes hopeless mood in some quarters it’s worth restating that things can get better. It’s also a reminder that while it’s pretty unlikely that the Summer crime bill is primarily responsible for the drop in crime; it’s also literally true that crime decreased after the bill’s passage. There are no guarantees that the recent decreases in crime will continue (they may even reverse) but it’s certainly possible and there are concrete things that DC residents and leaders could do to help make that more positive outcome more likely. This post isn’t a prediction that crime will decrease in 2024, but is instead a review of the factors that may contribute to a better 2024:

Chief Smith seems to be implementing best practices at MPD: Chief Smith appears to be trying to incorporate lessons from other cities and make the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) more proactive. Under her leadership MPD is setting up a “Real Time Crime Center,” focusing police resources on key problems like robbery hot spots (both in terms of geographic areas and time of day/week) and released a strategic plan that says many of the right things about prioritization and leveraging technology (including UAVs):

Chief Smith announces MPD's new strategic plan

Notably these tactical changes have been paired with a leadership push for officers to get out of their cars and engage with the community. Related to this issue, Chief Smith and her command team have also been addressing issues of officer morale and confidence to be “getting them back in the game.” It remains to be seen if these efforts will help reverse the ~44% decrease in arrests-per-officer but when paired with some likely upcoming legislation (more below) it’s definitely possible.

In addition the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council (CJCC) is developing the capacity to refresh to Gun Violence Problem Analysis in order to identify the highest-risk 200-500 individuals that drive the majority of gun violence in DC. This has significant positive implications for MPD and the US Attorney’s ability to prioritize investigations of these individuals and for violence prevention programs to try to coax them away from criminal activity. Given how much of an outsize role these individuals have in driving gun violence in DC, even a small improvement in DC’s ability to identify and intervene with them could have a material impact on violent crime (especially homicides). Lastly the welcome late December news that the DC Crime Lab “regained accreditation for its biology lab, which processes DNA, and the chemistry lab, which processes drugs for testing” should help MPD solve more cases and help increase successful prosecutions.

Transparency may be driving better performance: One of the major developments in 2023 was an enormous amount of media/political pressure on the United States Attorney’s Office (USAO) for its record-low 33% prosecution rate in Fiscal Year (FY) 2022. This was followed by the USAO quickly increasing its prosecution rate by 20% by the end of FY 2023:

This is a pretty clear example of transparency and political pressure forcing some long-overdue changes in DC’s criminal justice ecosystem. No one should be declaring victory on this issue (DC is still a huge outlier in low prosecution rates) but if crime in 2023 was accelerated by the USAO’s record-low FY 2022 prosecution rate, then the USAO’s changes should put some downward pressure on crime in 2024. The increase in prosecutions has correlated with a rising detainee population at DC’s jail. It’s impossible to quantify the crime-reducing impact of “incapacitating” ~300 more suspects/offenders, but it’s possible that will also help reduce crime in 2024.

There’s reason to be optimistic that there will be even more transparency in 2024 as the CJCC is now publishing quarterly prosecution data for gun possession and violent crime arrests. Even better, this data is for both adults (charged by the USAO) and juveniles (charged by the DC Attorney General or OAG). For example we can now see that in the first 10 months of 2023 the USAO pressed charges in ~64% of MPD’s adult arrests for illegal gun possession, up from ~55% in 2022. 64% is still much lower than prosecutors in other cities but it is an improvement and may help decrease gun violence in 2024.

It’s also possible that this new transparency into juvenile prosecutions, including the OAG’s 63% prosecution rate for violent crimes, will help spark necessary conversations about what is happening with those cases:

These new CJCC dashboards were mandated by the “Prioritizing Public Safety Emergency Amendment Act of 2023 (D.C. Act 25-175) and the CJCC Data Collection Technical Correction Emergency Amendment Act of 2023 (D.C. Act 25-295)” and cover a wide swath of DC’s fragmented criminal justice system from crimes, arrests, prosecutions, sentencing and rehabilitation. These dashboards aren’t perfect but this is a big step forward towards DC fighting crime in a data-driven and systemic way. This also gives policymakers, journalists and residents more tools for accountability. Given how much breakdowns in enforcement have contributed to DC’s crime problems, increased transparency (and hopefully accountability) is a cause for optimism in 2024.

There’s probably enough consensus to pass some crime legislation in 2024: It seems pretty likely that some mix of the myriad bills offered by the Mayor and several Councilmembers will pass in some form early in 2024. For the most part, crime rates are unlikely to change much in response to any single piece of legislation. But it’s possible that whatever passes may help improve the system directly and by raising the morale of key actors within DC’s criminal justice system:

• Some of the provisions of the Mayor’s ACT Now bill do address common MPD officer complaints about Body Worn Camera (BWC) rules, report writing and incidental neck contact when making an arrest. It’s possible that this kind of policy change could raise morale and support Chief Smith’s efforts to get officers to be more proactive.

• Many of the provisions of CM Pinto’s ACTIVE Act address issues raised by the USAO. Passage of some of these provisions may make the USAO more enthusiastic about closing the significant gap in prosecution rates between DC and other major cities.

• CM Mendelson’s bill “would direct D.C.’s Mayor to implement a violence reduction model that’s shown promise in other cities, address blight and vacant properties, and use Medicaid dollars to fund violence prevention.” The bill’s emphases on Focused Deterrence, an often-successful model I’ve written about here, is especially promising and aligns well with some aspects of Chief Smith’s strategic plan.

There are also a number of other crime/public safety bills with significant numbers of Council co-sponsors. It’s impossible to know what exactly will pass and its impact on crime in 2024 but it’s pretty likely that this year will see some additional crime legislation.

The 2024 presidential election may help pressure the Federal government to better fight crime in DC: Disclaimer/reminder that this is not a prediction. One possibility is that political embarrassment over crime in DC may incentivize the Biden administration to take crime in DC more seriously. This could involve directing more Federal resources to DC and/or directing the Department of Justice to engage in more careful oversight of key-to-DC federal agencies like the USAO, the US Marshals and CSOSA. With Republicans likely to continue to use crime in DC to attack Democrats, and local crime in DC possibly influencing how DC-based national political journalists see Biden’s crime record, the upcoming 2024 presidential campaign could increase the pressure on the Biden administration to help fix DC’s crime problem. This isn’t particularly likely but it’s one possible way that DC could get some help in 2024.

Some crime risk factors may be decreasing: One bright spot is that initial data shows that chronic absenteeism has decreased in DC Public Schools this current school year. This suggests that ~30% of students are still chronically absent, down from 41% last school year, but any progress is better than nothing. Since absenteeism tends to correlate with other risk factors for criminal activity this is a hopeful sign that the absenteeism disaster in DC schools (that has almost certainly contributed to our juvenile crime problem) is beginning to recede. If this continues it should help put downward pressure on juvenile crime rates in 2024.

Absenteeism is only one of many economic, healthcare and other societal problems that make it harder to prevent crime. But this incremental improvement is a reminder that progress is possible on these issues and DC may be able to do a better job of preventing crime in 2024.

There are reasons to be hopeful about DC driving down crime rates in 2024. But hope is famously not a plan. All of these possible positive factors require serious effort, transparency and often public pressure to come to fruition. For DC policymakers, journalists and engaged citizens there is a lot of work to do. Happy New Year!