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If the NG (or ideally another federal LE agency) demonstrably reduces crime in DC, without engaging in particularly political actions, will raise some interesti

by rdl 1y ago

If the NG (or ideally another federal LE agency) demonstrably reduces crime in DC, without engaging in particularly political actions, will raise some interesting questions about why things have been so bad for for long. Aside from street protests and rallies (which NG should scrupulously facilitate for 1A reasons; DC itself has been fairly bad about this in the past, too), I don't think most local policing is highly political. Yes, DC residents are losing some democratic control over their local policing, which is bad, but DC has also done a bad job with local policing for a long time. (I'm broadly in favor of shrinking DC to the federal areas themselves; the parts where people live generally should be returned to the States.)

toomuchtodo 1y ago
> If the NG (or ideally another federal LE agency) demonstrably reduces crime in DC, without engaging in particularly political actions, will raise some interesting questions about why things have been so bad for for long. Trump says crime in D.C. is out of control. Here’s what the data shows. - https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/08/10/trump-crime-data-federal-takeover/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/08/10/trump-cri... - August 10th, 2025 Violent Crime in D.C. Hits 30 Year Low - https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/violent-crime-dc-hits-30-year-low https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/violent-crime-dc-hits-30-... - January 3rd, 2025 (My note: Published by this admin's DoJ in January of this year) DC Metro Police 2025 Year-to-Date Crime Comparison - https://mpdc.dc.gov/page/district-crime-data-glance https://mpdc.dc.gov/page/district-crime-data-glance
- croes 1y ago
  But Washington is clearly reigned by a criminal
burkaman 1y ago
> If the NG (or ideally another federal LE agency) demonstrably reduces crime in DC I don't know how you could measure this, since DC saw a very significant reduction in crime last year without any interference from the National Guard. If there are further reductions this year, that would be a continuation of a trend, not a new phenomenon.
- skajzbxbbj 1y ago
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  - burkaman 1y ago
    If you don't trust the stats, then again, how would you know what effect the National Guard has? I can give you my subjective assessment as a DC resident, which is that crime is pretty low and it's a great place to live, but that isn't very useful to anyone who doesn't know me personally. If you don't trust the stats then the Guard is being sent in for no reason and there will be no way to determine what impact they have. That is a terrible situation for everyone. > It’s nice to be data driven but that isn’t really possible in our low trust society. I don't think these concepts (interpersonal trust vs. accuracy of government statistics) are very related. For example China has one of the highest levels of interpersonal trust in the world (https://ourworldindata.org/trust https://ourworldindata.org/trust), but notoriously unreliable government statistics.
    - skajzbxbbj 1y ago
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      - dang 1y ago
        Could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=community%20identity%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... (This is not related to the content of your post - I just needed a place to put this reply.)
    - Goronmon 1y ago
jacquesm 1y ago
For me it doesn't really raise any interesting questions at all: things are statistically not 'bad' per se, besides, you could trade your democracy for an autocracy or a dictatorship and end up 'safe' from small crime but meanwhile have your whole country looted. Maybe some people prefer that but I would rather have garden variety criminals and a trustworthy government fighting them than some kind of re-invention of the USSR, which didn't really bother with collecting crime statistics, and where crime was - so they claimed - very low (this really wasn't the case, especially not if you consider the behavior of lots of highly placed individuals, who could get away with just about anything, except of course stealing from their bosses).
- skajzbxbbj 1y ago
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  - ethbr1 1y ago
    As with the parent, I prefer civil liberties and small amounts of crime to any alternative. Which is why the playbook for authoritarianism traditionally starts with lying about how much crime there actually is, thus justifying a crackdown. If Trump wants to cite excessive crime as his reasoning, then he should provide statistics, not the unsubstantiated off-the-cuff insults he has thus far.
  - throwawayqqq11 1y ago
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- energy123 1y ago
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  - amanaplanacanal 1y ago
    This is a particularly uneducated take. Violent crime is down massively from a few decades ago.
nozzlegear 1y ago
> (I'm broadly in favor of shrinking DC to the federal areas themselves; the parts where people live generally should be returned to the States.) Alternatively, we could just make DC a state, which I'm broadly in favor of.
- gottorf 1y ago
  The whole point of the District of Columbia not being a state is that the United States is an equal compact between the states, and it would not be fair for the seat of the federal government to be in a state. So I'm a hard pass on DC statehood. I find GP's suggestion better. Would you be as favorable to DC statehood if they were guaranteed to vote the opposite of you?
  - nozzlegear 1y ago
    > Would you be as favorable to DC statehood if they were guaranteed to vote the opposite of you? Yes I would, the people of DC should have representation, but using retrocession to get there would dilute any influence they have on their own politics and local control. I understand that the founders were worried about fairness and no state being favored over another by selecting one to be the capitol of the country, but I don't believe that'd be a concern for almost anyone alive today – especially if that state were made up out of whole cloth from the people who had already lived there.
    - gottorf 1y ago
      > but I don't believe that'd be a concern for almost anyone alive today On the contrary, it is a significant concern for me and I'm sure I'm not alone in my thoughts. Fully half of the top ten richest counties in this country are suburbs of DC, a place that has no industry other than politics, administration, and lobbying. I find this to be an absolute travesty that shows just how much incentive and corrupting force there is in the federal government. Return the land to the states. Keep a small federal territorial enclave for actual federal buildings and functions. Make a lot more of these territorial enclaves all around this vast country so that power is less concentrated in one place. That's one thing the Germans got right, in their federalism.
NikolaNovak 1y ago
Oh, you just have to look around the world to see how effectively a dictator's deployment of national armed force reduces the official crime statistics. There's absolutely positively zero doubt in mind that will be a reported outcome :-)
KennyBlanken 1y ago
"So bad"? They're nineteenth in terms of highest murder rate among US cities. The rate had been falling for over a decade, save a brief spike in 2023.
- throwawaylaptop 1y ago
  The capital of a country, especially one in a special status like Washington DC, should be a shinning star of perfection, nit in the top 20 hell holes you'd never want to be caught dead in at midnight alone.
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    That sounds like a reference to North Korea. If that wasn't your intention: the capital of a country is usually (but not always) also the largest city. The largest city will have the largest group of people on the fringe. By definition it will never be a 'shining star of perfection', but neither are they in the 'top 20 hell holes', they have more of everything, and that - unfortunately - includes more crime. But the DC version is a bit more complex in that the biggest criminals are not found on the streets but in various offices.
tootie 1y ago
For one I would not accept that trade off at all. But secondly it's exceedingly unlikely. Policing has barely any impact on crime rate. The governor of NYC deployed national guard to the subways and they stand around doing nothing. Police also routinely stand around doing nothing. Crime spiked from the pandemic and dropped when it ended. No public policy has made more than a marginal impact. Crime rate is dictated by economics. What are 10000 federal agents and soldiers going to do? Walk around looking for crime to stop? DC has the most police per capita of any city in America. How much crime do they stop by standing around? At best they respond to 911 calls and federal agents aren't plugged in to 911. What the hell are they going to do about crime that isn't in the streets? And are they going to do traffic enforcement because that's probably 99% of the unenforced crime in any city. Weigh that against Pam Bondi stating in no uncertain terms that DC will be completely crime free in short order. This is pure theater.
- billy99k 1y ago
  The idea is that with more police presence, criminals will think twice before attempting anything. Standing around is part of this. A good example of this is NYC around 2000. It worked.
  - ceejayoz 1y ago
    > A good example of this is NYC around 2000. It worked. Counterexample: https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-proactive-policing-crime-20170925-story.html https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-proacti... "Each week during the slowdown saw civilians report an estimated 43 fewer felony assaults, 40 fewer burglaries and 40 fewer acts of grand larceny. And this slight suppression of major crime rates actually continued for seven to 14 weeks after those drops in proactive policing — which led the researchers to estimate that overall, the slowdown resulted in about 2,100 fewer major-crimes complaints." "“In their efforts to increase civilian compliance, certain policing tactics may inadvertently contribute to serious criminal activity,” the researchers wrote. “The implications for understanding policing in a democratic society should not be understated.”" "“Our results imply not only that these tactics fail at their stated objective of reducing major legal violations, but also that the initial deployment of proactive policing can inspire additional crimes that later provide justification for further increasing police stops, summonses and so on,” the authors wrote." NYC did indeed see a big crime drop in the 2000s… but so did everywhere else. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Trend_of_Violent_Crime_from_1985_to_2022_(United_States).png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#/me...
throwaway173738 1y ago
I hope you don’t find yourself in one of the out groups in the fascist state you seem so eager for. There’s a reason you don’t turn the military on the citizenry. They’re for fighting the enemies of the nation and the police are for maintaining order. When the military become the police, the citizenry become the enemy of the nation.
- scarface_74 1y ago
  Costa Rica (a country my wife and I are seriously looking at moving to in retirement and planning to spend a couple of months there every year starting next year) famously doesn’t have a military to prevent military coups and to put more money into their excellent universal health care system among other things.
  - rayiner 1y ago
    Costa Rica's homicide rate is 17 per 100,000 people. You probably won't notice it living in whatever expatriate enclave you and your wife are looking at, but that's a crushing burden on the average person in the country.
    - stubish 1y ago
      Is this just an anecdote, or are you claiming that having a military would somehow reduce the homicide rate? How would this work in practice?
      - netsharc 1y ago
        Probably by having the panopticon-effect. The same way a surveillance camera in every room would also reduce bad behavior...
        AstralStorm 1y ago
        Only way to achieve that is if people are afraid of these forces and perceive them as effective at policing. If they're not, nothing will happen.
ajross 1y ago
> [...] raise some interesting questions about why things have been so bad for for long. Counter-argument: things have not been bad. In DC or elsewhere. It's a meme. In fact DC crime statistics, like national ones, have been trending steadily downward for decades. They burp with immediate inputs, like spiking over the pandemic when formerly-employed folks found time to get in more trouble, but... they aren't bad. DC is safe, historically. Chicago is safe. Seattle is safe. Portland is safe. NYC is extremely safe. All these places partisan media likes to paint as urban hellscapes are in fact historically safe cities in which to live and do business. The answer to "why things have been so bad for so long" is inside your television, basically. It's not on the streets of DC.
- rayiner 1y ago
  > DC is safe, historically. Chicago is safe. Seattle is safe. Portland is safe. NYC is extremely safe. DC is not safe. The homicide rate in DC in 2023 was about 40 per 100k. That's about the same as Haiti in 2023. Not even Haiti in a normal year, which is around 7-10 homicides per 100k. DC is as bad as Haiti during the recent unrest, where homicides quadrupled from 2020 to 2023. DC is only a little bit less bad than the civilian death rate in Iraq during ISIS, which peaked at 50 per 100k in 2014. "Safe" is below 1 homicide per 100k annually, like most of western europe, which only a handful of cities in the U.S. match, like Boise, ID or Irvine, CA. "Relatively safe" are places like Massachusetts, Vermont, Utah, Oregon, or Iowa, which are similar to Canada at around 2 per 100k. San Diego and New York City, in the 3-4 per 100k range, are "safe-ish."
  - apical_dendrite 1y ago
    No, DC and Chicago are not Fallujah. I travel to DC frequently and have never had any reason to fear violent crime. I take the metro. I walk long distances, including late at night. I have relatives who live there. They do not worry about violent crime. They certainly don't consider it "Fallujah". I've also seen aides to the same republican politicians who spout all this fear mongering rhetoric out at night at DC bars without any apparent fears for their safety. Frankly, it's an incredibly insulting to say that DC is Fallujah. There is literally an article on the Department of Justice website from January with the title "Violent Crime in D.C. Hits 30 Year Low". The statistics that you quoted are several years out of date and you conveniently neglected to mention the decline after 2023. You chose a number from 2023 of 40 per 100k, but the number from 2024 was 27 per 100k. That's cherry-picking data to make a point. It's dishonest. You also neglect to mention the differences in data collection practices between the United States and a country like Haiti or Iraq. Exactly how trustworthy are wartime homicide statistics in a country undergoing complete social collapse? https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/violent-crime-dc-hits-30-year-low https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/violent-crime-dc-hits-30-... If you look at the actual list of homicides in a major American city, the victims are often people who are involved in the drug trade. Homicides are often highly concentrated in small areas. A large portion of the city sees no homicides at all in a given year. I don't know if an equivalent map exists for DC, but you can look at a map of homicides in Boston in 2024. There are a few areas where there are clusters with 2-3 homicides within a few blocks. Then there are whole neighborhoods where there are no homicides at all, or just one or two. https://www.universalhub.com/crime/murder/2024 https://www.universalhub.com/crime/murder/2024 Typically a tourist to a major US city doesn't have much reason to fear violent crime. People commuting into the city to work or living in more affluent neighborhoods don't have much reason to fear violent crime. People living in poorer neighborhoods often do have reason to fear violent crime, but it really depends on the neighborhood and things can vary from one block to another. People involved in the drug trade in particular neighborhoods have an extremely good reason to fear violent crime. For decades now, the media has painted a sensationalized picture of big cities. I was traveling once and was talking to an older couple from a rural area. When I told them where I lived, they were genuinely concerned for my safety. I was completely mystified because in the years that I've lived here, I've never had any reason to feel unsafe.
treyd 1y ago
The crime rates in DC have been dramatically falling over the last couple years, just as they have been falling across most cities in the country for the last couple decades.
jMyles 1y ago
> If the NG (or ideally another federal LE agency) demonstrably reduces crime in DC, without engaging in particularly political actions Every action taken by a police organization is per se a political action. That's why "police" are called that.
insane_dreamer 1y ago
> If the NG (or ideally another federal LE agency) demonstrably reduces crime in DC Beijing is the safest city I've ever lived in. A heavily policed city with an authoritarian government will give you all the safety and low crime rates you desire. It comes at a cost. Get on the wrong side of the authorities for any reason (or no reason), and you're in jail with the criminals.
- jacquesm 1y ago
  If you're lucky.
- lenkite 1y ago
  > Get on the wrong side of the authorities for any reason (or no reason), and you're in jail with the criminals. Unless you have personal political clout, this is True for any nation.
  - SJC_Hacker 1y ago
    Naw, quite a few countries have this nice thing called an “independent judiciary” and “rights” not subject to the whims of an egomaniac
  - srean 1y ago
    I am surprised that you believe this. May I ask which country you are from and what experiences shaped this belief of yours
    - lenkite 1y ago
      In India where a social media post pissed off someone. It was sarcastic criticism - no threats, no slurs). But won't get into details, sorry. (Also arrested a few times for participating in mass protests against corruption, but that was in a large group, so wasn't all that stressful.) I also had bad luck when traveling to the US. Got detained by the CBP - I think because I accidentally sneezed on the officer and pissed him off. (Either that or I looked like some terrorist). Had to stay in a cell for more than a day. I wasn't even questioned! Thankfully, nothing happened after that. Was good to catch up on sleep though, since there was nothing to do.
Arainach 1y ago
>will raise some interesting questions about why things have been so bad for for long. Crime in DC is near a 30 year low. If you think they've been "so bad for so long" then go spend some time in the city instead of watching TV. Here, from the feds themselves (wonder how much longer this site will be live): https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/violent-crime-dc-hits-30-year-low https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/violent-crime-dc-hits-30-... >Total violent crime for 2024 in the District of Columbia is down 35% from 2023 and is the lowest it has been in over 30 years, according to data collected by the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD)
- floydnoel 1y ago
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  - const_cast 1y ago
    If you're insinuating that crime is not actually down and statistics are merely lying, then you are mistaken. Crime, pretty much everywhere in the US and by many different metrics, has been falling for over 3 decades. It makes sense. Crime is getting harder and harder to committ with the advent of the Internet and new surveillance technology. Crime is, like all things in life, a risk-reward calculus. Most criminals aren't criminals because they innately like crime. Rather, they choose crime because they think the reward is worth the risk. If the reward falls, or if the risk is too great, many won't turn to crime. With newer social services and things like the ACA, there's less reason to committ crime. You're often better off just... not... And getting help through provided channels. And then if you do committ crime, it's extremely likely you get caught, even for small crimes.
    - bearl 1y ago
      “With newer social services and things like the ACA, there's less reason to committ crime.” Crime was certainly never driven by the cost of private health insurance. Rather, crime is driven by things like alcohol and demographics, policing or lack there of, surely not by aggregate health care spending lol.
grafmax 1y ago
Poverty is the underlying driver of most crime. Poverty, in turn, is the result of wealth hoarding by the ruling class. Authoritarian intervention can lower crime at the expense of democratic rights. (Let’s not kid ourselves, the NG will not be used to “facilitate” protest in DC.). Effectively, an authoritarian response to crime further consolidates the power of the ruling class. Trump has steadily encroached on constitutional rights throughout his term. He is indifferent to the root causes of crime. He is really only interested in crime insofar as it allows him to identify more people he doesn’t like as criminals, and to use harsher measures against them.

by rdl 1y ago

toomuchtodo 1y ago

> If the NG (or ideally another federal LE agency) demonstrably reduces crime in DC, without engaging in particularly political actions, will raise some interesting questions about why things have been so bad for for long. Trump says crime in D.C. is out of control. Here’s what the data shows. - https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/08/10/trump-crime-data-federal-takeover/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/08/10/trump-cri... - August 10th, 2025 Violent Crime in D.C. Hits 30 Year Low - https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/violent-crime-dc-hits-30-year-low https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/violent-crime-dc-hits-30-... - January 3rd, 2025 (My note: Published by this admin's DoJ in January of this year) DC Metro Police 2025 Year-to-Date Crime Comparison - https://mpdc.dc.gov/page/district-crime-data-glance https://mpdc.dc.gov/page/district-crime-data-glance

croes 1y ago
But Washington is clearly reigned by a criminal

burkaman 1y ago

> If the NG (or ideally another federal LE agency) demonstrably reduces crime in DC I don't know how you could measure this, since DC saw a very significant reduction in crime last year without any interference from the National Guard. If there are further reductions this year, that would be a continuation of a trend, not a new phenomenon.

skajzbxbbj 1y ago
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- burkaman 1y ago
  If you don't trust the stats, then again, how would you know what effect the National Guard has? I can give you my subjective assessment as a DC resident, which is that crime is pretty low and it's a great place to live, but that isn't very useful to anyone who doesn't know me personally. If you don't trust the stats then the Guard is being sent in for no reason and there will be no way to determine what impact they have. That is a terrible situation for everyone. > It’s nice to be data driven but that isn’t really possible in our low trust society. I don't think these concepts (interpersonal trust vs. accuracy of government statistics) are very related. For example China has one of the highest levels of interpersonal trust in the world (https://ourworldindata.org/trust https://ourworldindata.org/trust), but notoriously unreliable government statistics.
  - skajzbxbbj 1y ago
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    - dang 1y ago
      Could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=community%20identity%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... (This is not related to the content of your post - I just needed a place to put this reply.)
  - Goronmon 1y ago

jacquesm 1y ago

For me it doesn't really raise any interesting questions at all: things are statistically not 'bad' per se, besides, you could trade your democracy for an autocracy or a dictatorship and end up 'safe' from small crime but meanwhile have your whole country looted. Maybe some people prefer that but I would rather have garden variety criminals and a trustworthy government fighting them than some kind of re-invention of the USSR, which didn't really bother with collecting crime statistics, and where crime was - so they claimed - very low (this really wasn't the case, especially not if you consider the behavior of lots of highly placed individuals, who could get away with just about anything, except of course stealing from their bosses).

skajzbxbbj 1y ago
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- ethbr1 1y ago
  As with the parent, I prefer civil liberties and small amounts of crime to any alternative. Which is why the playbook for authoritarianism traditionally starts with lying about how much crime there actually is, thus justifying a crackdown. If Trump wants to cite excessive crime as his reasoning, then he should provide statistics, not the unsubstantiated off-the-cuff insults he has thus far.
- throwawayqqq11 1y ago
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energy123 1y ago
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- amanaplanacanal 1y ago
  This is a particularly uneducated take. Violent crime is down massively from a few decades ago.

nozzlegear 1y ago

> (I'm broadly in favor of shrinking DC to the federal areas themselves; the parts where people live generally should be returned to the States.) Alternatively, we could just make DC a state, which I'm broadly in favor of.

gottorf 1y ago
The whole point of the District of Columbia not being a state is that the United States is an equal compact between the states, and it would not be fair for the seat of the federal government to be in a state. So I'm a hard pass on DC statehood. I find GP's suggestion better. Would you be as favorable to DC statehood if they were guaranteed to vote the opposite of you?
- nozzlegear 1y ago
  > Would you be as favorable to DC statehood if they were guaranteed to vote the opposite of you? Yes I would, the people of DC should have representation, but using retrocession to get there would dilute any influence they have on their own politics and local control. I understand that the founders were worried about fairness and no state being favored over another by selecting one to be the capitol of the country, but I don't believe that'd be a concern for almost anyone alive today – especially if that state were made up out of whole cloth from the people who had already lived there.
  - gottorf 1y ago
    > but I don't believe that'd be a concern for almost anyone alive today On the contrary, it is a significant concern for me and I'm sure I'm not alone in my thoughts. Fully half of the top ten richest counties in this country are suburbs of DC, a place that has no industry other than politics, administration, and lobbying. I find this to be an absolute travesty that shows just how much incentive and corrupting force there is in the federal government. Return the land to the states. Keep a small federal territorial enclave for actual federal buildings and functions. Make a lot more of these territorial enclaves all around this vast country so that power is less concentrated in one place. That's one thing the Germans got right, in their federalism.

NikolaNovak 1y ago

Oh, you just have to look around the world to see how effectively a dictator's deployment of national armed force reduces the official crime statistics. There's absolutely positively zero doubt in mind that will be a reported outcome :-)

KennyBlanken 1y ago

"So bad"? They're nineteenth in terms of highest murder rate among US cities. The rate had been falling for over a decade, save a brief spike in 2023.

throwawaylaptop 1y ago
The capital of a country, especially one in a special status like Washington DC, should be a shinning star of perfection, nit in the top 20 hell holes you'd never want to be caught dead in at midnight alone.
- jacquesm 1y ago
  That sounds like a reference to North Korea. If that wasn't your intention: the capital of a country is usually (but not always) also the largest city. The largest city will have the largest group of people on the fringe. By definition it will never be a 'shining star of perfection', but neither are they in the 'top 20 hell holes', they have more of everything, and that - unfortunately - includes more crime. But the DC version is a bit more complex in that the biggest criminals are not found on the streets but in various offices.

tootie 1y ago

For one I would not accept that trade off at all. But secondly it's exceedingly unlikely. Policing has barely any impact on crime rate. The governor of NYC deployed national guard to the subways and they stand around doing nothing. Police also routinely stand around doing nothing. Crime spiked from the pandemic and dropped when it ended. No public policy has made more than a marginal impact. Crime rate is dictated by economics. What are 10000 federal agents and soldiers going to do? Walk around looking for crime to stop? DC has the most police per capita of any city in America. How much crime do they stop by standing around? At best they respond to 911 calls and federal agents aren't plugged in to 911. What the hell are they going to do about crime that isn't in the streets? And are they going to do traffic enforcement because that's probably 99% of the unenforced crime in any city. Weigh that against Pam Bondi stating in no uncertain terms that DC will be completely crime free in short order. This is pure theater.

billy99k 1y ago
The idea is that with more police presence, criminals will think twice before attempting anything. Standing around is part of this. A good example of this is NYC around 2000. It worked.
- ceejayoz 1y ago
  > A good example of this is NYC around 2000. It worked. Counterexample: https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-proactive-policing-crime-20170925-story.html https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-proacti... "Each week during the slowdown saw civilians report an estimated 43 fewer felony assaults, 40 fewer burglaries and 40 fewer acts of grand larceny. And this slight suppression of major crime rates actually continued for seven to 14 weeks after those drops in proactive policing — which led the researchers to estimate that overall, the slowdown resulted in about 2,100 fewer major-crimes complaints." "“In their efforts to increase civilian compliance, certain policing tactics may inadvertently contribute to serious criminal activity,” the researchers wrote. “The implications for understanding policing in a democratic society should not be understated.”" "“Our results imply not only that these tactics fail at their stated objective of reducing major legal violations, but also that the initial deployment of proactive policing can inspire additional crimes that later provide justification for further increasing police stops, summonses and so on,” the authors wrote." NYC did indeed see a big crime drop in the 2000s… but so did everywhere else. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Trend_of_Violent_Crime_from_1985_to_2022_(United_States).png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#/me...

throwaway173738 1y ago

I hope you don’t find yourself in one of the out groups in the fascist state you seem so eager for. There’s a reason you don’t turn the military on the citizenry. They’re for fighting the enemies of the nation and the police are for maintaining order. When the military become the police, the citizenry become the enemy of the nation.

scarface_74 1y ago
Costa Rica (a country my wife and I are seriously looking at moving to in retirement and planning to spend a couple of months there every year starting next year) famously doesn’t have a military to prevent military coups and to put more money into their excellent universal health care system among other things.
- rayiner 1y ago
  Costa Rica's homicide rate is 17 per 100,000 people. You probably won't notice it living in whatever expatriate enclave you and your wife are looking at, but that's a crushing burden on the average person in the country.
  - stubish 1y ago
    Is this just an anecdote, or are you claiming that having a military would somehow reduce the homicide rate? How would this work in practice?
    - netsharc 1y ago
      Probably by having the panopticon-effect. The same way a surveillance camera in every room would also reduce bad behavior...
      - AstralStorm 1y ago
        Only way to achieve that is if people are afraid of these forces and perceive them as effective at policing. If they're not, nothing will happen.

ajross 1y ago

> [...] raise some interesting questions about why things have been so bad for for long. Counter-argument: things have not been bad. In DC or elsewhere. It's a meme. In fact DC crime statistics, like national ones, have been trending steadily downward for decades. They burp with immediate inputs, like spiking over the pandemic when formerly-employed folks found time to get in more trouble, but... they aren't bad. DC is safe, historically. Chicago is safe. Seattle is safe. Portland is safe. NYC is extremely safe. All these places partisan media likes to paint as urban hellscapes are in fact historically safe cities in which to live and do business. The answer to "why things have been so bad for so long" is inside your television, basically. It's not on the streets of DC.

rayiner 1y ago
> DC is safe, historically. Chicago is safe. Seattle is safe. Portland is safe. NYC is extremely safe. DC is not safe. The homicide rate in DC in 2023 was about 40 per 100k. That's about the same as Haiti in 2023. Not even Haiti in a normal year, which is around 7-10 homicides per 100k. DC is as bad as Haiti during the recent unrest, where homicides quadrupled from 2020 to 2023. DC is only a little bit less bad than the civilian death rate in Iraq during ISIS, which peaked at 50 per 100k in 2014. "Safe" is below 1 homicide per 100k annually, like most of western europe, which only a handful of cities in the U.S. match, like Boise, ID or Irvine, CA. "Relatively safe" are places like Massachusetts, Vermont, Utah, Oregon, or Iowa, which are similar to Canada at around 2 per 100k. San Diego and New York City, in the 3-4 per 100k range, are "safe-ish."
- apical_dendrite 1y ago
  No, DC and Chicago are not Fallujah. I travel to DC frequently and have never had any reason to fear violent crime. I take the metro. I walk long distances, including late at night. I have relatives who live there. They do not worry about violent crime. They certainly don't consider it "Fallujah". I've also seen aides to the same republican politicians who spout all this fear mongering rhetoric out at night at DC bars without any apparent fears for their safety. Frankly, it's an incredibly insulting to say that DC is Fallujah. There is literally an article on the Department of Justice website from January with the title "Violent Crime in D.C. Hits 30 Year Low". The statistics that you quoted are several years out of date and you conveniently neglected to mention the decline after 2023. You chose a number from 2023 of 40 per 100k, but the number from 2024 was 27 per 100k. That's cherry-picking data to make a point. It's dishonest. You also neglect to mention the differences in data collection practices between the United States and a country like Haiti or Iraq. Exactly how trustworthy are wartime homicide statistics in a country undergoing complete social collapse? https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/violent-crime-dc-hits-30-year-low https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/violent-crime-dc-hits-30-... If you look at the actual list of homicides in a major American city, the victims are often people who are involved in the drug trade. Homicides are often highly concentrated in small areas. A large portion of the city sees no homicides at all in a given year. I don't know if an equivalent map exists for DC, but you can look at a map of homicides in Boston in 2024. There are a few areas where there are clusters with 2-3 homicides within a few blocks. Then there are whole neighborhoods where there are no homicides at all, or just one or two. https://www.universalhub.com/crime/murder/2024 https://www.universalhub.com/crime/murder/2024 Typically a tourist to a major US city doesn't have much reason to fear violent crime. People commuting into the city to work or living in more affluent neighborhoods don't have much reason to fear violent crime. People living in poorer neighborhoods often do have reason to fear violent crime, but it really depends on the neighborhood and things can vary from one block to another. People involved in the drug trade in particular neighborhoods have an extremely good reason to fear violent crime. For decades now, the media has painted a sensationalized picture of big cities. I was traveling once and was talking to an older couple from a rural area. When I told them where I lived, they were genuinely concerned for my safety. I was completely mystified because in the years that I've lived here, I've never had any reason to feel unsafe.

treyd 1y ago

The crime rates in DC have been dramatically falling over the last couple years, just as they have been falling across most cities in the country for the last couple decades.

jMyles 1y ago

> If the NG (or ideally another federal LE agency) demonstrably reduces crime in DC, without engaging in particularly political actions Every action taken by a police organization is per se a political action. That's why "police" are called that.

insane_dreamer 1y ago

> If the NG (or ideally another federal LE agency) demonstrably reduces crime in DC Beijing is the safest city I've ever lived in. A heavily policed city with an authoritarian government will give you all the safety and low crime rates you desire. It comes at a cost. Get on the wrong side of the authorities for any reason (or no reason), and you're in jail with the criminals.

jacquesm 1y ago
If you're lucky.
lenkite 1y ago
> Get on the wrong side of the authorities for any reason (or no reason), and you're in jail with the criminals. Unless you have personal political clout, this is True for any nation.
- SJC_Hacker 1y ago
  Naw, quite a few countries have this nice thing called an “independent judiciary” and “rights” not subject to the whims of an egomaniac
- srean 1y ago
  I am surprised that you believe this. May I ask which country you are from and what experiences shaped this belief of yours
  - lenkite 1y ago
    In India where a social media post pissed off someone. It was sarcastic criticism - no threats, no slurs). But won't get into details, sorry. (Also arrested a few times for participating in mass protests against corruption, but that was in a large group, so wasn't all that stressful.) I also had bad luck when traveling to the US. Got detained by the CBP - I think because I accidentally sneezed on the officer and pissed him off. (Either that or I looked like some terrorist). Had to stay in a cell for more than a day. I wasn't even questioned! Thankfully, nothing happened after that. Was good to catch up on sleep though, since there was nothing to do.

Arainach 1y ago

>will raise some interesting questions about why things have been so bad for for long. Crime in DC is near a 30 year low. If you think they've been "so bad for so long" then go spend some time in the city instead of watching TV. Here, from the feds themselves (wonder how much longer this site will be live): https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/violent-crime-dc-hits-30-year-low https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/violent-crime-dc-hits-30-... >Total violent crime for 2024 in the District of Columbia is down 35% from 2023 and is the lowest it has been in over 30 years, according to data collected by the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD)

floydnoel 1y ago
[flagged]
- const_cast 1y ago
  If you're insinuating that crime is not actually down and statistics are merely lying, then you are mistaken. Crime, pretty much everywhere in the US and by many different metrics, has been falling for over 3 decades. It makes sense. Crime is getting harder and harder to committ with the advent of the Internet and new surveillance technology. Crime is, like all things in life, a risk-reward calculus. Most criminals aren't criminals because they innately like crime. Rather, they choose crime because they think the reward is worth the risk. If the reward falls, or if the risk is too great, many won't turn to crime. With newer social services and things like the ACA, there's less reason to committ crime. You're often better off just... not... And getting help through provided channels. And then if you do committ crime, it's extremely likely you get caught, even for small crimes.
  - bearl 1y ago
    “With newer social services and things like the ACA, there's less reason to committ crime.” Crime was certainly never driven by the cost of private health insurance. Rather, crime is driven by things like alcohol and demographics, policing or lack there of, surely not by aggregate health care spending lol.

grafmax 1y ago

Poverty is the underlying driver of most crime. Poverty, in turn, is the result of wealth hoarding by the ruling class. Authoritarian intervention can lower crime at the expense of democratic rights. (Let’s not kid ourselves, the NG will not be used to “facilitate” protest in DC.). Effectively, an authoritarian response to crime further consolidates the power of the ruling class. Trump has steadily encroached on constitutional rights throughout his term. He is indifferent to the root causes of crime. He is really only interested in crime insofar as it allows him to identify more people he doesn’t like as criminals, and to use harsher measures against them.