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

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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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”[/quote]

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[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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[/quote]

It can fluctuate fairly randomly year to year, though -- homicide was down 10 percent in 2022 over 2021, but I take it you don't think that's a sign that violent crime overall is going in the right direction?[/quote]

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