What everyone misunderstands about crime in DC

And how to do it right

If you've been following the news about Washington, DC over the past few years, you may have heard that the city has a crime problem. Washington post has covered it; so Slowly getting boringIn an April post According to a survey, more than 60% of residents described the city's problems as “extremely” or “very” serious.

The District's crime wave has drawn attention not only because of its location, but because it has been longer and larger than those in other major cities, where violence in many cities has been declining since 2022 and murders are back at historic lows. So DC is not benefiting from the increases other cities are seeing. There are positive signs: Violent crime is down from last year as a wave of car thefts has abated somewhat, and murders are below recent highs. But the increases appear to be coming at the expense of quality of life issues, such as a breakdown in traffic enforcement or a sharp rise in 311 calls for sanitation monitoring.

But what can the city – and the federal government, which is constitutionally responsible for it – actually do about its crime problem? As I argue in a recent Manhattan Institute report, almost everyone has looked at the problem the wrong way. Analyses have focused on a general “crime” problem rather than on specific problems; solutions have focused on the severity of criminal laws, which have been seen as either too harsh or too lenient.

Read the full article here at Slowly getting boring

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Charles Fain Lehman is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and editor of the City Journal. Based on a recent report.

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