Crime was DOWN everywhere in DC in 2022… except Ward 3 where it increased

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:These threads are so amusing. DC is a crime-ridden tent city and people here are like b-b-b-b-ut crime isn't really up! Happy to read and laugh from a nice, leafy suburb where carjackings and shootings are not part of my morning digest anymore.

Remember, the HOA meeting is at Applebees this week!

Lol we don't have an HOA or an Applebees. Just multimillion dollar homes without gun violence.

And black people probably. Just admit they scare you and that's why you left DC to be around white people.

DP. You have made an explicit stereotype of Black people as violent criminals. This is an astonishingly racist statement which is par for the course in DCUM.

FBI stats

[Anonymous]

Notice the DC crime stats as reported by the city do not include a ton of different violent crime offenses that are considered as violent crime by other jurisdictions. For example, they do not report ASSAULTS. They only report assaults with dangerous weapons. There are thousands upon thousands of assaults in DC that the figures do not include. Maybe they've gone up, maybe they've gone down. We'll never know because they don't report it. Also, it severely distorts the picture of overall violent crime rates compared to neighboring jurisdictions (like Fairfax County) where they DO include these crimes in their statistics. I was told by my friend in DC whose car was hit and run by a drunk driver that the police would not investigate it even though he had a plate number. They said he could file a report but it would be of no use because they would not follow up with him or pursue it. DC police are starved of resources and the city is a cesspool of crime

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Notice the DC crime stats as reported by the city do not include a ton of different violent crime offenses that are considered as violent crime by other jurisdictions. For example, they do not report ASSAULTS. They only report assaults with dangerous weapons. There are thousands upon thousands of assaults in DC that the figures do not include. Maybe they've gone up, maybe they've gone down. We'll never know because they don't report it. Also, it severely distorts the picture of overall violent crime rates compared to neighboring jurisdictions (like Fairfax County) where they DO include these crimes in their statistics. I was told by my friend in DC whose car was hit and run by a drunk driver that the police would not investigate it even though he had a plate number. They said he could file a report but it would be of no use because they would not follow up with him or pursue it. DC police are starved of resources and the city is a cesspool of crime

After hearing that story, I’m not sure that the main issue with MPD is resources. It sounds to me like the problem is incentives. If they file reports then it gets added to the stats which makes their bosses mad. If they do their jobs and catch criminals and they are not prosecuted then they may feel like they’ve wasted their time.

The problem here sounds like there is a need for new leadership at all levels of DC government responsible for public safety.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These threads are so amusing. DC is a crime-ridden tent city and people here are like b-b-b-b-ut crime isn't really up! Happy to read and laugh from a nice, leafy suburb where carjackings and shootings are not part of my morning digest anymore.

Remember, the HOA meeting is at Applebees this week!

Lol we don't have an HOA or an Applebees. Just multimillion dollar homes without gun violence.

And black people probably. Just admit they scare you and that's why you left DC to be around white people.

DP. You have made an explicit stereotype of Black people as violent criminals. This is an astonishingly racist statement which is par for the course in DCUM.

DP... "Black people" is a definite stereotype, and is racist. The overwhelming majority of blacks are decent, kind, law abiding people. But there is a specific and narrow subset of young, low income males that has been committing a hugely disproportionate share of the violent crime in DC. It's fine to push back hard on the broad stereotypes, and in fact, we all should be doing that. But I also don't think we should be tiptoeing around that much narrower subset that is committing violent crime.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Notice the DC crime stats as reported by the city do not include a ton of different violent crime offenses that are considered as violent crime by other jurisdictions. For example, they do not report ASSAULTS. They only report assaults with dangerous weapons. There are thousands upon thousands of assaults in DC that the figures do not include. Maybe they've gone up, maybe they've gone down. We'll never know because they don't report it. Also, it severely distorts the picture of overall violent crime rates compared to neighboring jurisdictions (like Fairfax County) where they DO include these crimes in their statistics. I was told by my friend in DC whose car was hit and run by a drunk driver that the police would not investigate it even though he had a plate number. They said he could file a report but it would be of no use because they would not follow up with him or pursue it. DC police are starved of resources and the city is a cesspool of crime

After hearing that story, I’m not sure that the main issue with MPD is resources. It sounds to me like the problem is incentives. If they file reports then it gets added to the stats which makes their bosses mad. If they do their jobs and catch criminals and they are not prosecuted then they may feel like they’ve wasted their time.

The problem here sounds like there is a need for new leadership at all levels of DC government responsible for public safety.

If they aren't getting prosecuted, that's still not an excuse for not arresting. In fact a better thing for MPD to do in such a case is to put up a dashboard that tracks statistics on arrests versus prosecutions to shame the prosecutors into doing their f'n jobs.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Typical of many discussions of crime. Perception is not reality.

Cue someone posting that DC police don't ever take police reports seriously so statistics are meaningless.

Well, the reality is that people in Ward 3 who perceive that crime is getting worse are in fact correct, because they are experience higher violent crime. While people in the rest of the city are experience lower violent crime, which is what spurs comments like yours. It might be worthwhile to consider that there can actually be a factual basis that drives peoples perceptions.

On the other hand, there are also other people in Ward 3, like me, who are not experiencing higher violent crime (I have not been a victim of violent crime in 20+ years living in D.C., whether I lived in Ward 2, Ward 1, Ward 4, or Ward 3). So... sure, if it's all just down to perception based on personal experience, you're going to have a wide range of beliefs.

But a .6 percent increase in violent crime is not likely to be noticeable to anyone except the relatively small number of people who were victims of the crimes, especially in a context where overall violent crime citywide is down.

What's DEFINITELY up is discussion of crime and rhetoric around crime increasing, even if the stats don't really back that up.

That’s awesome. Congratulations on not being a crime victim. However, your attitude of “If it doesn’t affect me, then it’s not a problem” is quite selfish and disrespectful to crime victims. In all honestly, it sounds pretty Republican. Everyone looking out for themself.

No, my point was that you can't make policy based on perception -- some people perceive crime to be worse, some people don't.

That’s a fascinating viewpoint when you are saying that your perception is that the increase in crime is NBD because you weren’t a victim and that people who were victims or concerned about the increase in crime in their neighborhood have a false perception? Except actual data to the contrary?

No, I replied to one person who said that yes, Ward 3 crime is up so therefore people's perception of crime being up is accurate, by pointing out that there are a lot of people whose perception of crime did not go up. Perception is totally subjective and hard to measure; actual crime is easy to measure. If crime is up in Ward 3, that's a policy problem that can be addressed. If people's perception of crime is up — even more than crime is up — that's a political problem. But regardless, the policy solution should deal with what the stats are, not what people think about crime.

Measured violent crime went up and you said that the amount it went up was insignificant. So… not sure what your point is aside from believing that you don’t perceive to be at risk because you have not been a crime victim. That’s a very selfish and Republican attitude.

Measured violent crime in Ward 3 went up, by a very small amount. That's a fact that policymakers can work with. (MPD's crime mapping tool for some reason is showing me it went down in 2022 -- there were 79 violent crimes in Ward 3 in 2021 and 75 in 2022 -- but let's assume that's wrong.)

What policymakers cannot do much useful with is people's feelings about crime. We all approach this issue with different perspectives based on our own experiences. Some people might say, "I feel as if crime is worse here, and it did go up, therefore, my feelings are correct," and my point was that I or people like me might say, "Oh, but I don't perceive crime to be worse." If we start making policy concerned primarily with people's opinions about crime rather than with the crime stats, whose opinions or feelings do we prioritize?

For whatever it's worth, I understand you're trying to win the argument by calling me a Republican, but I don't really think saying that urban crime is less of a problem than people think it is is a standard GOP talking point.

I get it now. An intolerable level of violent crime for you will be when you are a victim but not before. Thanks for the clarification. I’m sure that all of the violent crime victims are relieved to know that what happen to them was only a “little bit” more crime that their government could not have protected them from in any case. Meanwhile, they must be stare at Western Avenue and wonder why it’s so magical at reducing violent crime when their own “policy makers” cannot seem to figure it out.

Applying utilitarian arguments to violent crime is pretty disturbing.

It isn't a utilitarian argument, and who says I'd change my views on crime if I were a victim? (I support a lot of policies that don't benefit me personally.) And anyway, violent crime in Montgomery County was up in 2022, so I don't see what your point about Western Avenue is supposed to be.

I'm not saying crime doesn't matter. I'm saying what matters is the crime rate, not what people think about it. That cuts both ways: If crime spikes, then my personal experience not being a victim of it would also be unimportant. But an increase of .6 percent in one ward as crime falls citywide probably isn't going to prompt the type of response you seem to be hoping for. (Or, actually, it probably will, because our ward has plenty of clout to get what people here want.)

First of all, people in Montgomery County are pretty upset about violent crime being up. They are not doing what you are doing, which for them would be saying something like “well it only looks like it is up a lot because it from such a low base, but benchmarking against DC and the country…” So you see how odd and contradictory it is for you to use Montgomery County as some kind of cudgel to promote your nihilistic viewpoint.

Second, you are now all over the place and have nothing coherent to say. As another PP pointed out, to borrow an approach that you may be familiar with, why are you so willing to decide that an important goal should be zero “traffic violence” but you equivocate, hem-and-haw and justify violent crime. Or alternatively, I would love to hear what you have to say to the DC cycling community about why their perceptions of risk are not consistent with risk and that policy makers cannot eliminate traffic deaths so they just need to get over it and anyway, you’ve been cycling in the city for years and have never been hit.

You, or someone who agrees with you, brought up Western Avenue as if there was no crime on the other side of it. I'm not using it as a cudgel, I'm pointing out that there is also violent crime outside of D.C.

And I'm not justifying violent crime at all! I'm saying that what matters is not whether I think there's not a lot of violent crime, or whether you think there is a lot of it, but rather how much of it there is. We obviously shouldn't make policy decisions as if no one had ever been a victim of violent crime and never will. But we also shouldn't make them as if everyone is in grave danger all the time. No one person's individual experience with crime should become the lens through which the whole city makes decisions about how to respond to it.

I don't think your analogy to traffic planning works, though -- bike lanes, etc., are designed to make it so everyone can use the roads safely, not just cars. But the idea is that cars and bikes and pedestrians and buses can all operate more or less freely and in harmony. No one, by contrast, wants criminals to be able to operate freely, and they can't operate in harmony with their victims. Here, too, my personal experience is irrelevant: I've been hit by cars both in my car and on my bike (not yet as a pedestrian, and so far, I've never hit anyone while driving), but I don't think that gives me any special insight into how to write the rules of the road.

And there it is

It was very easy to predict that this was the type of person that only cares about things that happens to them.

Except that that poster also specifically said their experience was irrelevant to transportation policy?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Typical of many discussions of crime. Perception is not reality.

Cue someone posting that DC police don't ever take police reports seriously so statistics are meaningless.

Well, the reality is that people in Ward 3 who perceive that crime is getting worse are in fact correct, because they are experience higher violent crime. While people in the rest of the city are experience lower violent crime, which is what spurs comments like yours. It might be worthwhile to consider that there can actually be a factual basis that drives peoples perceptions.

On the other hand, there are also other people in Ward 3, like me, who are not experiencing higher violent crime (I have not been a victim of violent crime in 20+ years living in D.C., whether I lived in Ward 2, Ward 1, Ward 4, or Ward 3). So... sure, if it's all just down to perception based on personal experience, you're going to have a wide range of beliefs.

But a .6 percent increase in violent crime is not likely to be noticeable to anyone except the relatively small number of people who were victims of the crimes, especially in a context where overall violent crime citywide is down.

What's DEFINITELY up is discussion of crime and rhetoric around crime increasing, even if the stats don't really back that up.

That’s awesome. Congratulations on not being a crime victim. However, your attitude of “If it doesn’t affect me, then it’s not a problem” is quite selfish and disrespectful to crime victims. In all honestly, it sounds pretty Republican. Everyone looking out for themself.

No, my point was that you can't make policy based on perception -- some people perceive crime to be worse, some people don't.

That’s a fascinating viewpoint when you are saying that your perception is that the increase in crime is NBD because you weren’t a victim and that people who were victims or concerned about the increase in crime in their neighborhood have a false perception? Except actual data to the contrary?

No, I replied to one person who said that yes, Ward 3 crime is up so therefore people's perception of crime being up is accurate, by pointing out that there are a lot of people whose perception of crime did not go up. Perception is totally subjective and hard to measure; actual crime is easy to measure. If crime is up in Ward 3, that's a policy problem that can be addressed. If people's perception of crime is up — even more than crime is up — that's a political problem. But regardless, the policy solution should deal with what the stats are, not what people think about crime.

Measured violent crime went up and you said that the amount it went up was insignificant. So… not sure what your point is aside from believing that you don’t perceive to be at risk because you have not been a crime victim. That’s a very selfish and Republican attitude.

Measured violent crime in Ward 3 went up, by a very small amount. That's a fact that policymakers can work with. (MPD's crime mapping tool for some reason is showing me it went down in 2022 -- there were 79 violent crimes in Ward 3 in 2021 and 75 in 2022 -- but let's assume that's wrong.)

What policymakers cannot do much useful with is people's feelings about crime. We all approach this issue with different perspectives based on our own experiences. Some people might say, "I feel as if crime is worse here, and it did go up, therefore, my feelings are correct," and my point was that I or people like me might say, "Oh, but I don't perceive crime to be worse." If we start making policy concerned primarily with people's opinions about crime rather than with the crime stats, whose opinions or feelings do we prioritize?

For whatever it's worth, I understand you're trying to win the argument by calling me a Republican, but I don't really think saying that urban crime is less of a problem than people think it is is a standard GOP talking point.

I get it now. An intolerable level of violent crime for you will be when you are a victim but not before. Thanks for the clarification. I’m sure that all of the violent crime victims are relieved to know that what happen to them was only a “little bit” more crime that their government could not have protected them from in any case. Meanwhile, they must be stare at Western Avenue and wonder why it’s so magical at reducing violent crime when their own “policy makers” cannot seem to figure it out.

Applying utilitarian arguments to violent crime is pretty disturbing.

It isn't a utilitarian argument, and who says I'd change my views on crime if I were a victim? (I support a lot of policies that don't benefit me personally.) And anyway, violent crime in Montgomery County was up in 2022, so I don't see what your point about Western Avenue is supposed to be.

I'm not saying crime doesn't matter. I'm saying what matters is the crime rate, not what people think about it. That cuts both ways: If crime spikes, then my personal experience not being a victim of it would also be unimportant. But an increase of .6 percent in one ward as crime falls citywide probably isn't going to prompt the type of response you seem to be hoping for. (Or, actually, it probably will, because our ward has plenty of clout to get what people here want.)

First of all, people in Montgomery County are pretty upset about violent crime being up. They are not doing what you are doing, which for them would be saying something like “well it only looks like it is up a lot because it from such a low base, but benchmarking against DC and the country…” So you see how odd and contradictory it is for you to use Montgomery County as some kind of cudgel to promote your nihilistic viewpoint.

Second, you are now all over the place and have nothing coherent to say. As another PP pointed out, to borrow an approach that you may be familiar with, why are you so willing to decide that an important goal should be zero “traffic violence” but you equivocate, hem-and-haw and justify violent crime. Or alternatively, I would love to hear what you have to say to the DC cycling community about why their perceptions of risk are not consistent with risk and that policy makers cannot eliminate traffic deaths so they just need to get over it and anyway, you’ve been cycling in the city for years and have never been hit.

You, or someone who agrees with you, brought up Western Avenue as if there was no crime on the other side of it. I'm not using it as a cudgel, I'm pointing out that there is also violent crime outside of D.C.

And I'm not justifying violent crime at all! I'm saying that what matters is not whether I think there's not a lot of violent crime, or whether you think there is a lot of it, but rather how much of it there is. We obviously shouldn't make policy decisions as if no one had ever been a victim of violent crime and never will. But we also shouldn't make them as if everyone is in grave danger all the time. No one person's individual experience with crime should become the lens through which the whole city makes decisions about how to respond to it.

I don't think your analogy to traffic planning works, though -- bike lanes, etc., are designed to make it so everyone can use the roads safely, not just cars. But the idea is that cars and bikes and pedestrians and buses can all operate more or less freely and in harmony. No one, by contrast, wants criminals to be able to operate freely, and they can't operate in harmony with their victims. Here, too, my personal experience is irrelevant: I've been hit by cars both in my car and on my bike (not yet as a pedestrian, and so far, I've never hit anyone while driving), but I don't think that gives me any special insight into how to write the rules of the road.

And there it is

It was very easy to predict that this was the type of person that only cares about things that happens to them.

Except that that poster also specifically said their experience was irrelevant to transportation policy?

The PP said a lot of things. All of it contradictory.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think this explains a lot about the entire nature of the discussion around crime in DC.

https://www.axios.com/local/washington-dc/2023/01/05/violent-crime-stats-dc-2022
“Violent crime has decreased in most parts of D.C. compared to five years ago. Wards 4, 6, and 7 had the biggest drops.

Ward 3 in Upper Northwest is an outlier, with a slight uptick last year”

Aggregate crime statistics are not very reliable because of changes in reporting from year to year. Look at a violent crime that is reliably reported every time — the best example is homicide. Homicide rates are up massively in DC over the past five years, all across the city. In fact they’ve almost doubled. That’s the best violent crime indicator, and it shows a big jump

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think this explains a lot about the entire nature of the discussion around crime in DC.

https://www.axios.com/local/washington-dc/2023/01/05/violent-crime-stats-dc-2022
“Violent crime has decreased in most parts of D.C. compared to five years ago. Wards 4, 6, and 7 had the biggest drops.

Ward 3 in Upper Northwest is an outlier, with a slight uptick last year”

Aggregate crime statistics are not very reliable because of changes in reporting from year to year. Look at a violent crime that is reliably reported every time — the best example is homicide. Homicide rates are up massively in DC over the past five years, all across the city. In fact they’ve almost doubled. That’s the best violent crime indicator, and it shows a big jump

I wouldn't only focus on the murder rate, though -- for one, you're much likelier to be the victim of a different violent crime than you are to be murdered. If the homicide rate goes down but other violent crimes go up, I wouldn't generally find that reassuring.

For another, the homicide rate can also fluctuate wildly based on random factors -- did one shooter in an incident one year fire a bunch of random shots that killed multiple people besides their intended target, then the next year, some other shooter's aim was better? If so, the homicide rate will look like it dropped, but for absolutely no reason.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Notice the DC crime stats as reported by the city do not include a ton of different violent crime offenses that are considered as violent crime by other jurisdictions. For example, they do not report ASSAULTS. They only report assaults with dangerous weapons. There are thousands upon thousands of assaults in DC that the figures do not include. Maybe they've gone up, maybe they've gone down. We'll never know because they don't report it. Also, it severely distorts the picture of overall violent crime rates compared to neighboring jurisdictions (like Fairfax County) where they DO include these crimes in their statistics. I was told by my friend in DC whose car was hit and run by a drunk driver that the police would not investigate it even though he had a plate number. They said he could file a report but it would be of no use because they would not follow up with him or pursue it. DC police are starved of resources and the city is a cesspool of crime

How do you know there are thousands of assaults that MPD takes reports on but doesn't report stats for?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Typical of many discussions of crime. Perception is not reality.

Cue someone posting that DC police don't ever take police reports seriously so statistics are meaningless.

Well, the reality is that people in Ward 3 who perceive that crime is getting worse are in fact correct, because they are experience higher violent crime. While people in the rest of the city are experience lower violent crime, which is what spurs comments like yours. It might be worthwhile to consider that there can actually be a factual basis that drives peoples perceptions.

On the other hand, there are also other people in Ward 3, like me, who are not experiencing higher violent crime (I have not been a victim of violent crime in 20+ years living in D.C., whether I lived in Ward 2, Ward 1, Ward 4, or Ward 3). So... sure, if it's all just down to perception based on personal experience, you're going to have a wide range of beliefs.

But a .6 percent increase in violent crime is not likely to be noticeable to anyone except the relatively small number of people who were victims of the crimes, especially in a context where overall violent crime citywide is down.

What's DEFINITELY up is discussion of crime and rhetoric around crime increasing, even if the stats don't really back that up.

That’s awesome. Congratulations on not being a crime victim. However, your attitude of “If it doesn’t affect me, then it’s not a problem” is quite selfish and disrespectful to crime victims. In all honestly, it sounds pretty Republican. Everyone looking out for themself.

No, my point was that you can't make policy based on perception -- some people perceive crime to be worse, some people don't.

That’s a fascinating viewpoint when you are saying that your perception is that the increase in crime is NBD because you weren’t a victim and that people who were victims or concerned about the increase in crime in their neighborhood have a false perception? Except actual data to the contrary?

No, I replied to one person who said that yes, Ward 3 crime is up so therefore people's perception of crime being up is accurate, by pointing out that there are a lot of people whose perception of crime did not go up. Perception is totally subjective and hard to measure; actual crime is easy to measure. If crime is up in Ward 3, that's a policy problem that can be addressed. If people's perception of crime is up — even more than crime is up — that's a political problem. But regardless, the policy solution should deal with what the stats are, not what people think about crime.

Measured violent crime went up and you said that the amount it went up was insignificant. So… not sure what your point is aside from believing that you don’t perceive to be at risk because you have not been a crime victim. That’s a very selfish and Republican attitude.

Measured violent crime in Ward 3 went up, by a very small amount. That's a fact that policymakers can work with. (MPD's crime mapping tool for some reason is showing me it went down in 2022 -- there were 79 violent crimes in Ward 3 in 2021 and 75 in 2022 -- but let's assume that's wrong.)

What policymakers cannot do much useful with is people's feelings about crime. We all approach this issue with different perspectives based on our own experiences. Some people might say, "I feel as if crime is worse here, and it did go up, therefore, my feelings are correct," and my point was that I or people like me might say, "Oh, but I don't perceive crime to be worse." If we start making policy concerned primarily with people's opinions about crime rather than with the crime stats, whose opinions or feelings do we prioritize?

For whatever it's worth, I understand you're trying to win the argument by calling me a Republican, but I don't really think saying that urban crime is less of a problem than people think it is is a standard GOP talking point.

I get it now. An intolerable level of violent crime for you will be when you are a victim but not before. Thanks for the clarification. I’m sure that all of the violent crime victims are relieved to know that what happen to them was only a “little bit” more crime that their government could not have protected them from in any case. Meanwhile, they must be stare at Western Avenue and wonder why it’s so magical at reducing violent crime when their own “policy makers” cannot seem to figure it out.

Applying utilitarian arguments to violent crime is pretty disturbing.

It isn't a utilitarian argument, and who says I'd change my views on crime if I were a victim? (I support a lot of policies that don't benefit me personally.) And anyway, violent crime in Montgomery County was up in 2022, so I don't see what your point about Western Avenue is supposed to be.

I'm not saying crime doesn't matter. I'm saying what matters is the crime rate, not what people think about it. That cuts both ways: If crime spikes, then my personal experience not being a victim of it would also be unimportant. But an increase of .6 percent in one ward as crime falls citywide probably isn't going to prompt the type of response you seem to be hoping for. (Or, actually, it probably will, because our ward has plenty of clout to get what people here want.)

First of all, people in Montgomery County are pretty upset about violent crime being up. They are not doing what you are doing, which for them would be saying something like “well it only looks like it is up a lot because it from such a low base, but benchmarking against DC and the country…” So you see how odd and contradictory it is for you to use Montgomery County as some kind of cudgel to promote your nihilistic viewpoint.

Second, you are now all over the place and have nothing coherent to say. As another PP pointed out, to borrow an approach that you may be familiar with, why are you so willing to decide that an important goal should be zero “traffic violence” but you equivocate, hem-and-haw and justify violent crime. Or alternatively, I would love to hear what you have to say to the DC cycling community about why their perceptions of risk are not consistent with risk and that policy makers cannot eliminate traffic deaths so they just need to get over it and anyway, you’ve been cycling in the city for years and have never been hit.

You, or someone who agrees with you, brought up Western Avenue as if there was no crime on the other side of it. I'm not using it as a cudgel, I'm pointing out that there is also violent crime outside of D.C.

And I'm not justifying violent crime at all! I'm saying that what matters is not whether I think there's not a lot of violent crime, or whether you think there is a lot of it, but rather how much of it there is. We obviously shouldn't make policy decisions as if no one had ever been a victim of violent crime and never will. But we also shouldn't make them as if everyone is in grave danger all the time. No one person's individual experience with crime should become the lens through which the whole city makes decisions about how to respond to it.

I don't think your analogy to traffic planning works, though -- bike lanes, etc., are designed to make it so everyone can use the roads safely, not just cars. But the idea is that cars and bikes and pedestrians and buses can all operate more or less freely and in harmony. No one, by contrast, wants criminals to be able to operate freely, and they can't operate in harmony with their victims. Here, too, my personal experience is irrelevant: I've been hit by cars both in my car and on my bike (not yet as a pedestrian, and so far, I've never hit anyone while driving), but I don't think that gives me any special insight into how to write the rules of the road.

DP but the point seems very obvious that even though crime is up in MoCo it’s toll substantially lower than crime in DC and I think it’s a really safe bet that crime in Chevy Chase, MD is lower than crime in adjoining Ward 3 DC.

It's lower, but fortunately, the rates are low in both places: Violent crime rate in Chevy Chase per 1,000 people was .2 in 2022, and in Ward 3 it was .9. Citywide in D.C. the violent crime rate is over 5 per 1,000 people.

You have a 4.5X higher chance of being a violent crime victim in Ward 3 than Chevy Chase. That’s a big difference. Why is it so different in places that are so close geographically and socio-economically?

Ward 3 has more mixed-density use than Chevy Chase, Md., or at least as far as Chevy Chase is defined for crime reporting purposes -- the village of Chevy Chase is almost exclusively residential, where Ward 3 includes two major commercial corridors that (I'd bet) are where most of the violent crime happened, on Wisconsin and Connecticut.

Would maybe be interesting to compare Ward 3 D.C. violent crime rates with Friendship Heights, Md., violent crime rates, but I don't think Friendship Heights is a standalone municipal entity that reports crime figures separately from the rest of Montgomery County.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Typical of many discussions of crime. Perception is not reality.

Cue someone posting that DC police don't ever take police reports seriously so statistics are meaningless.

Well, the reality is that people in Ward 3 who perceive that crime is getting worse are in fact correct, because they are experience higher violent crime. While people in the rest of the city are experience lower violent crime, which is what spurs comments like yours. It might be worthwhile to consider that there can actually be a factual basis that drives peoples perceptions.

On the other hand, there are also other people in Ward 3, like me, who are not experiencing higher violent crime (I have not been a victim of violent crime in 20+ years living in D.C., whether I lived in Ward 2, Ward 1, Ward 4, or Ward 3). So... sure, if it's all just down to perception based on personal experience, you're going to have a wide range of beliefs.

But a .6 percent increase in violent crime is not likely to be noticeable to anyone except the relatively small number of people who were victims of the crimes, especially in a context where overall violent crime citywide is down.

What's DEFINITELY up is discussion of crime and rhetoric around crime increasing, even if the stats don't really back that up.

That’s awesome. Congratulations on not being a crime victim. However, your attitude of “If it doesn’t affect me, then it’s not a problem” is quite selfish and disrespectful to crime victims. In all honestly, it sounds pretty Republican. Everyone looking out for themself.

No, my point was that you can't make policy based on perception -- some people perceive crime to be worse, some people don't.

That’s a fascinating viewpoint when you are saying that your perception is that the increase in crime is NBD because you weren’t a victim and that people who were victims or concerned about the increase in crime in their neighborhood have a false perception? Except actual data to the contrary?

No, I replied to one person who said that yes, Ward 3 crime is up so therefore people's perception of crime being up is accurate, by pointing out that there are a lot of people whose perception of crime did not go up. Perception is totally subjective and hard to measure; actual crime is easy to measure. If crime is up in Ward 3, that's a policy problem that can be addressed. If people's perception of crime is up — even more than crime is up — that's a political problem. But regardless, the policy solution should deal with what the stats are, not what people think about crime.

Measured violent crime went up and you said that the amount it went up was insignificant. So… not sure what your point is aside from believing that you don’t perceive to be at risk because you have not been a crime victim. That’s a very selfish and Republican attitude.

Measured violent crime in Ward 3 went up, by a very small amount. That's a fact that policymakers can work with. (MPD's crime mapping tool for some reason is showing me it went down in 2022 -- there were 79 violent crimes in Ward 3 in 2021 and 75 in 2022 -- but let's assume that's wrong.)

What policymakers cannot do much useful with is people's feelings about crime. We all approach this issue with different perspectives based on our own experiences. Some people might say, "I feel as if crime is worse here, and it did go up, therefore, my feelings are correct," and my point was that I or people like me might say, "Oh, but I don't perceive crime to be worse." If we start making policy concerned primarily with people's opinions about crime rather than with the crime stats, whose opinions or feelings do we prioritize?

For whatever it's worth, I understand you're trying to win the argument by calling me a Republican, but I don't really think saying that urban crime is less of a problem than people think it is is a standard GOP talking point.

I get it now. An intolerable level of violent crime for you will be when you are a victim but not before. Thanks for the clarification. I’m sure that all of the violent crime victims are relieved to know that what happen to them was only a “little bit” more crime that their government could not have protected them from in any case. Meanwhile, they must be stare at Western Avenue and wonder why it’s so magical at reducing violent crime when their own “policy makers” cannot seem to figure it out.

Applying utilitarian arguments to violent crime is pretty disturbing.

It isn't a utilitarian argument, and who says I'd change my views on crime if I were a victim? (I support a lot of policies that don't benefit me personally.) And anyway, violent crime in Montgomery County was up in 2022, so I don't see what your point about Western Avenue is supposed to be.

I'm not saying crime doesn't matter. I'm saying what matters is the crime rate, not what people think about it. That cuts both ways: If crime spikes, then my personal experience not being a victim of it would also be unimportant. But an increase of .6 percent in one ward as crime falls citywide probably isn't going to prompt the type of response you seem to be hoping for. (Or, actually, it probably will, because our ward has plenty of clout to get what people here want.)

First of all, people in Montgomery County are pretty upset about violent crime being up. They are not doing what you are doing, which for them would be saying something like “well it only looks like it is up a lot because it from such a low base, but benchmarking against DC and the country…” So you see how odd and contradictory it is for you to use Montgomery County as some kind of cudgel to promote your nihilistic viewpoint.

Second, you are now all over the place and have nothing coherent to say. As another PP pointed out, to borrow an approach that you may be familiar with, why are you so willing to decide that an important goal should be zero “traffic violence” but you equivocate, hem-and-haw and justify violent crime. Or alternatively, I would love to hear what you have to say to the DC cycling community about why their perceptions of risk are not consistent with risk and that policy makers cannot eliminate traffic deaths so they just need to get over it and anyway, you’ve been cycling in the city for years and have never been hit.

You, or someone who agrees with you, brought up Western Avenue as if there was no crime on the other side of it. I'm not using it as a cudgel, I'm pointing out that there is also violent crime outside of D.C.

And I'm not justifying violent crime at all! I'm saying that what matters is not whether I think there's not a lot of violent crime, or whether you think there is a lot of it, but rather how much of it there is. We obviously shouldn't make policy decisions as if no one had ever been a victim of violent crime and never will. But we also shouldn't make them as if everyone is in grave danger all the time. No one person's individual experience with crime should become the lens through which the whole city makes decisions about how to respond to it.

I don't think your analogy to traffic planning works, though -- bike lanes, etc., are designed to make it so everyone can use the roads safely, not just cars. But the idea is that cars and bikes and pedestrians and buses can all operate more or less freely and in harmony. No one, by contrast, wants criminals to be able to operate freely, and they can't operate in harmony with their victims. Here, too, my personal experience is irrelevant: I've been hit by cars both in my car and on my bike (not yet as a pedestrian, and so far, I've never hit anyone while driving), but I don't think that gives me any special insight into how to write the rules of the road.

DP but the point seems very obvious that even though crime is up in MoCo it’s toll substantially lower than crime in DC and I think it’s a really safe bet that crime in Chevy Chase, MD is lower than crime in adjoining Ward 3 DC.

It's lower, but fortunately, the rates are low in both places: Violent crime rate in Chevy Chase per 1,000 people was .2 in 2022, and in Ward 3 it was .9. Citywide in D.C. the violent crime rate is over 5 per 1,000 people.

You have a 4.5X higher chance of being a violent crime victim in Ward 3 than Chevy Chase. That’s a big difference. Why is it so different in places that are so close geographically and socio-economically?

Ward 3 has more mixed-density use than Chevy Chase, Md., or at least as far as Chevy Chase is defined for crime reporting purposes -- the village of Chevy Chase is almost exclusively residential, where Ward 3 includes two major commercial corridors that (I'd bet) are where most of the violent crime happened, on Wisconsin and Connecticut.

Would maybe be interesting to compare Ward 3 D.C. violent crime rates with Friendship Heights, Md., violent crime rates, but I don't think Friendship Heights is a standalone municipal entity that reports crime figures separately from the rest of Montgomery County.

You’re saying that more people and density = higher violent crime rates.

Thats also what NIMBYs say. Congratulations on being a NIMBY.

[Anonymous]

America will always have a crime problem because no one wants to address the root causes: expensive childcare, no universal PK, no social safety net, subpar public education, abortion ban, no effort to address mental illness, and any moron can get a gun. The GOP claims to be tough on crime but they aren’t they’re just pro cruelty and very expensive prisons. Democrats are only slightly better but have no party to work with because the GOP is too busy trying to take down Biden with lies.

[Anonymous]

How is pointing out the correlation between population density and increased crime rates nimbyism.

* the more people around higher changes one has a criminal agenda

* for criminals crimes of opportunity increase with more people and things around

very weird take to turn this into an anti-density comment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think this explains a lot about the entire nature of the discussion around crime in DC.

https://www.axios.com/local/washington-dc/2023/01/05/violent-crime-stats-dc-2022
“Violent crime has decreased in most parts of D.C. compared to five years ago. Wards 4, 6, and 7 had the biggest drops.

Ward 3 in Upper Northwest is an outlier, with a slight uptick last year”

Aggregate crime statistics are not very reliable because of changes in reporting from year to year. Look at a violent crime that is reliably reported every time — the best example is homicide. Homicide rates are up massively in DC over the past five years, all across the city. In fact they’ve almost doubled. That’s the best violent crime indicator, and it shows a big jump

I wouldn't only focus on the murder rate, though -- for one, you're much likelier to be the victim of a different violent crime than you are to be murdered. If the homicide rate goes down but other violent crimes go up, I wouldn't generally find that reassuring.

For another, the homicide rate can also fluctuate wildly based on random factors -- did one shooter in an incident one year fire a bunch of random shots that killed multiple people besides their intended target, then the next year, some other shooter's aim was better? If so, the homicide rate will look like it dropped, but for absolutely no reason.

Murder is important not just because it represents murders but because it’s the best indicator or index crime for many other forms of serious violence. Murder is basically the most extreme form of assault. When murders are soaring other violent crimes less likely to be reported and accurately tracked are probably going way up too.

Also, the trend in DC murders is not that they are “fluctuating wildly based on random factors”. It is that they went straight up like an arrow from 2017-2021. Have you looked at the murder stats? Up from I think around 110 in 2017 to around 220 in 2021 (don’t have the exact figures on me). That’s not random fluctuation it’s one of the biggest murder increases on record