DC violence has grown far more deadly, despite Dems claiming 30-year low
The chances of a person facing a violent crime in Washington, D.C., have dropped in recent years, but the possibility of dying during such a crime has skyrocketed, data shows.
"You have less chance of being victimized, but if you are victimized, you have more of a chance of dying," John Jay adjunct lecturer Jillian Snider, a retired New York Police Department officer, told Fox News Digital Tuesday of violent crime trends in the nation's capital.
Snider was referring to a report published by the Council on Criminal Justice in July, which studied violent crime data of 17 large U.S. cities between 2018 and 2024, specifically diving into the lethality of violent crimes in those cities. It found Washington, D.C., had the highest lethality level out of the group – which included cities such as Baltimore and Chicago – at a 38% increase in lethality in 2024 compared with 2018.
Lethality in D.C. jumped by a whopping 341% when compared to 2012 data, the study found, reporting that there were 13 homicides per 1,000 serious violent crimes in 2012 to 57 homicides per 1,000 serious violent crimes in 2024.
The study defined lethality as "the number of homicides per aggravated assaults and robberies."
D.C.'s crime rates are under the national spotlight this week after President Donald Trump announced Monday morning during a packed press conference that he was federalizing the Metropolitan Police Department under section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, which allows the president to assume emergency control of the capital's police force for 30 days.
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"Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs and homeless people," Trump said during the press conference. "And we're not going to let it happen anymore. We're not going to take it."
Upon Trump's announcement, Democratic lawmakers slammed the president for allegedly overstepping and sending in the National Guard despite crime trends falling in recent years. Top Democrats, such as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, promoted the narrative that crime is at a 30-year low.
"Violent crime in Washington, D.C. is at a thirty-year low," Jeffries said Monday. "Donald Trump has no basis to take over the local police department. And zero credibility on the issue of law and order. Get lost."
"As you listen to an unhinged Trump try to justify deploying the National Guard in DC, here's reality: Violent crime in DC is at a 30-year low," former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton posted to X.
When asked about some Democrats touting that crime has fallen to a 30-year-low, Snider argued that it's not "fair" to compare any city in 2025 to one in the 1990s.
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"The ‘90s were a shaky time in most urban and metropolitan areas," she said. "We were coming out of the crack epidemic. We were coming out of economic instability from the late ’80s. And then the '90s, we saw like this revolutionary policing, this broken windows policing, this now hot-spot policing, this CompStat-driven era."
"I don't think that any agency today in 2025 should be saying, like, 'Oh, we're doing so much better than we were in 1995,'" she continued. "It's a completely different world than it was in 1995. You have different demographics in different areas. You have different population counts in different areas."
The U.S. was rocked by violent crime waves from coast-to-coast in 2020 and the subsequent years, when the pandemic upended day-to-day life with lockdown orders and social justice protests and riots broke out in major cities nationwide. The FBI logged a nearly 30% increase in murders compared to the year prior, marking the largest single-year increase in killings since the agency began tracking the crimes.
Washington, D.C., was among the cities caught up in the national crime trend, recording 198 homicides that year, which marked a 16-year high for the city. Homicides jumped to 226 in 2021, another 203 in 2022 and 274 in 2023 – which was a 20-year high for the city.
D.C., saw homicides drop by roughly 31% from 2023 to 2024, according to year-end Metropolitan Police Department data reporting 274 homicides in 2023 compared to 187 in 2024. The data shows violent crime across the board fell by roughly 35% from 2023, when the department reported 5,345 violent crime incidents, to 2024, when it reported 3,469 violent crimes.
"Everyone should be celebrating that crime is falling," Snider said. "But at the same time, we don't have the full picture: Why is crime more deadly than it once was?"
The Council on Criminal Justice study found, specifically, that Washington's lethality increased each year from 2012–2021, except for 2016.
"The largest single-year increase was a 57% jump from 2014 to 2015," the study reported. "From 2019 to 2020, lethality increased by 22%, followed by another 14% increase in 2021. It then declined slightly in 2022 (-3%) and 2023 (-8%), before a 5% uptick in 2024. Lethality in 2020 was significantly higher than in all earlier years, except for 2019. However, lethality levels observed in 2021 through 2024 were not significantly different from those in 2020."
The author behind the study, Council on Criminal Justice senior researcher Ernesto Lopez, explained to local media in July that "lethality has climbed significantly" in the nation's capital despite crime trends falling.
"We look back to 2012 lethality – again, that share of violence that ended a homicide – that increased by over 300% from 2012 to 2024, even though the homicide rate drops," Lopez told WTOP in July. "So, the violent situations can be getting less frequent, but when those violent situations occur, they more likely end in a fatality than over a decade ago."
He added that the top takeaway from the study was "homicide and other violent crimes are declining through the first half of this year and continuing to fall below pre-pandemic levels."
"This is a continuing pattern of declining crime rates," he added. "Even some offenses, such as motor vehicle theft, that are seeing huge spikes really throughout 2022 and 2023, are really starting to come down in many jurisdictions."
While violence has dropped in D.C. in recent years, "it’s still at a very high level," Council on Criminal Justice President and CEO Adam Gelb told Fox News Digital Wednesday, when asked about recent rhetoric that crime is at a 30-year low despite lethality spiking in the city.
"There’s been a large and unmistakable drop in violence in Washington over the last two years but it’s still at a very high level and there are microtrends that cut against that overall positive picture," Gelb said. "When pieces of the puzzle are moving in different directions, it’s easy for people to pick out some of them and create an image that advances their policy and political agenda."
Snider explained that violent crimes decreasing while lethality increases is attributable to a handful of variables, including gang-related crimes.
"D.C. is known for having gangs and crews, and I know that there have been reports of increased juvenile-related crime," Snider said, pointing to a surge that began in 2021 as youths committed violent carjackings. "If you see higher gang or crew-related activity that potentially is using weapons, obviously that's where you're going to see more serious physical injury or death. So that's one of the bigger attributes also."
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Other variables that can contribute to an increase in lethality are long wait times to receive emergency care, such as slow EMS response times or long hospital waits, and if a police department is understaffed.
The study argued "two interrelated developments" on firearms likely drove the lethality in D.C., claiming "widespread availability (of firearms) may contribute to a perceived need for self-armament, creating a feedback loop or ‘arms race’ in which people acquire guns because they believe others are armed."
"This dynamic appears to have real consequences: Firearms purchased in 2020 were used in more crimes than the annual average in previous years. In addition, the flow of new firearms into legal markets contributes directly to the stock of firearms in illegal markets. That is, guns that are legally obtained may eventually be illegally sold and acquired by people who may not have the right to lawfully possess a firearm," the study's findings reported, while adding the "advancement of firearm technology" that increases their "lethal potential" likely drove lethality.
Snider added that she understands the Trump administration's rationale for federalizing the police force, but underscored the importance of having local police lead their jurisdiction as they understand the neighborhoods they patrol, the community and where crime lurks. Snider argued the administration should consider delivering federal funds to bolster local police departments' abilities to recruit and retain officers.
"Police presence in uniform does deter crime," she said. "You have two agents or two officers standing on a street corner, you're not going to see a lot of people getting their purses snatched, you're not gonna see a lot of people selling drugs on the corner, you're not gonna see a lot of people getting carjacked. But after the surge is over and after this National Guard deployment has withdrawn, what does that leave the MPD with?"