DC Public Safety Summit, Wednesday May 10th, 9am
I'm the first to say I don't know how to reduce violent crime other than ensuring police time is spent in the areas with the most crime, and that crimes involving gun possession be prosecuted diligently.
Recently, DC Police Chief Robert Contee said that the average person arrested for homicide in the city has been arrested 11 times before. Similarly, homicide victims have a high rate of involvement with the criminal justice system. It's pretty clear that a small number of people are responsible for a lot of crime.
Charlie has called our attention to the DC Crime Facts e-letter, and the site provides a lot of analysis about crime in the city.
DCCF has also alerted us to a "public safety summit" tomorrow, convened by Mayor Bowser, and bringing a lot of public officials to the table, with citizens invited.
Wednesday, May 10 at 9:00 a.m.
District Emergency Operations Center 1015 Half Street SE, 10th Floor
Officials Attending:
Mayor Muriel Bowser
Brooke Pinto, Ward 2 Councilmember, Chair, Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety
Lindsey Appiah, Acting Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice
Robert J. Contee, III, Chief of Police, Metropolitan Police Department
Matthew Graves, United States Attorney for the District of Columbia
Brian Schwalb, Attorney General for the District of Columbia
Anita Josey-Herring, Chief Judge, DC Superior Court
Linda Harllee Harper, Executive Director, DC Offices of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement and Gun Violence Prevention
Kristy Love, Executive Director, Criminal Justice Coordinating Council
It will be broadcast live on the city's cable television channel.
DCCF has a post, "Questions for Mayor Bowser's Public Safety Summit," providing lots of questions to be asked of the public officials. It's pretty focused and trenchant and worth a read.
He points out that arrests are down in the most dangerous parts of the city, and that areas of high crime have 300% to 400% more crime and incidents than "safe areas," but safe areas are overstaffed relative to crime.
What about a real Citizen Summit on Crime? I doubt that much will come of the summit, as it was announced the day before, and there is no posted agenda. But it also reminds me of something that Mayor Anthony Williams did two or three years running. They were called Citizen Summits and were designed, theoretically, to get citizen insights into city policy and budget.
They got more publicity, including in the planning press, than they deserved. I was critical that they were mostly window dressing, but I did attend one, and if they were organized to engage people in substantive ways, they could be very effective.
I would have an agenda, provide "education time" so people can be exposed to best practice insights, featuring well known academics and other professionals, and go from there.
Alex Vitale takes a different tack, focused on overpolicing and criminalization of social issues in End of Policing. It's provocative and worth reading, although maybe not relevant to the murder and gun problems.
-- "The opportunity to rearticulate public safety delivery keeps being presented: Rochester New York" (2021)
There is the broken windows approach.
-- "Broken windows/collective efficacy: Baltimore; Newark; Grand Junction, Colorado; Pittsburgh; Albany" (2019)
A lot of academics criticize it, but I think they are missing the point. BW never really got implemented, instead it was transmogrified into "zero tolerance policing" not community policing and improvement.
-- "George Kelling, co-creator of the "Broken WIndows" thesis, dies" (2019)
-- "The state of "broken windows" versus "problem oriented policing" strategies in 2016: Part 1, theory and practice," 2016
-- "The state of "broken windows" versus "problem oriented policing" strategies in 2016: Part 2, what to do"
-- "Night-time safety: rethinking lighting in the context of a walking community," 2014
-- Crime prevention through environmental design and repeated burglaries at the Naylor Gardens apartment complex," 2013
Herman Goldstein (deceased), wrote a lot about "problem-oriented policing."
And there is a lot of work on "violence interruption." I go back and forth about it, but there is some potential there.
But basically there needs to be a place-based approach to the most dangerous areas in the city, something I wrote about in terms of equity planning and social urbanism.
-- "Social urbanism and equity planning as a way to address crime, violence, and persistent poverty: (not in) DC" (2021)
-- "Creating 'community safety partnership neighborhood management programs as a management and mitigation strategy for public nuisances: Part 3 (like homeless shelters)" (2020)
I think that Mayor Bowser has bobbled the issue for years. And I don't see things changing.
Note that William Bratton's latest book is very good ("Bill Bratton Explains His Ideas of Good Policing," New York Times).
Labels: anti social behavior, crime, homelessness, neighborhood revitalization, neighborhood stabilization, nuisance properties, policing, public safety, urban design/placemaking, urban revitalization
posted by Richard Layman @ 11:38 PM&Permanent Link
26 Comments:
https://wjla.com/news/local/dc-burglary-h-street-corridor-restaurants-businesses-crime-safety-summit-mayor-muriel-bowser-pursuit-wine-bar-kitchen-sticky-rice-jason-martin-insurance-theft-break-in-police-investgation
This article shows the range of problems, burglary/property crimes versus violent crime. Different interests of different stakeholders.
My thing is police don't focus on crime suppression but in reaction.
Looks like the big takeaway from the "summit" is Bowser and Pinto want better pre-trail detention for violent offenders.
I'd make three points on your post:
1) Riffing off the above comment, yeah, different stakeholders. Property crime is what is getting to white people. And the numbers are sky-high. My building has 26 units and now about 23 cars. I'd say breaking are running at about 120% -- every car broken into, some multiple times in last year. I'd say maybe 3 got reported to police and only because insurance requested a police report.
2) As we've talked before, the actual population of offenders is probably under 1000 in DC and maybe 2500 if you include PG county.
3) In terms of "suppression" police have been doing a good job on the 4WD and dirt bikes and in a very background way -- tracking them and arresting them at storage or gas stations. It's gotten a lot better. Likewise the effort by "intelligence" to ID the top 100 at risk -- something like 50% were murdered and I'd guess the other 50% may have committed a murder and gotten away with it. But until the political class in DC is willing to admit we need a crackdown of the actual offender -- black males under 30 - not going to move much towards prevention.
The other factor which nobody wants to talk about is the I71 business - the grey market is clearly a large source of "beefs" and shooting.
It is a great chance for DC elected to take the high ground and claim back local control over the criminal justice system. US attorney office has clearly been focused on "insurrection" cases rather than local offense..DO you blame them. One of them is going to get you a very nice job after your stint as AUSA, the other will make you a public enemy by putting black youth into jail.
I was talking with Suzanne about this entry this morning, and I was thinking about how transformative it would be to have multiple citizen summits of substance, to refocus the issue, get communities involved, etc.
We were talking about mayors, comparing Salt Lake's Erin Mendenhall to Bowser. Bowser has so much more resources and doesn't seem to do all that much with them.
The Summit is a good example.
WRT pre-trial, I don't really understand, because heretofore, DC was a national best practice example of not using cash bail, and having a good system (not perfect, no system is), for identifying people who were threats and remanding/otherwise monitoring them.
Has that system broken down, or are offenders more violent, so the criteria for decision making has to be updated.
PLUS, YOUTH!!!!!!!! Did that problem even get discussed? It's obviously not working.
WRT I 71, obviously I am disconnected from the on the ground stuff, but the key generators of crimes of violence need to be addressed in systematic ways.
One of the reasons I like the Bratton book is he describes his jobs in Boston and NYC and how he interviewed for the Transit Police job in NYC. David Gunn took him around the system, the pretty "fetid" stations, and said, "we can fix the operations of the subway, but if the stations stay like this [super disorder] we won't get riders to return."
You have pointed out so many times, and sometimes I forget this, how important the crime drop was to the city's post 2000 resurgence.
I just don't get how City Council is so disconnected from that. Bowser seems to understand but obviously she's not very good at communicating that, shows that she cares, or at rallying the community.
Good to hear about the pocket etc. bikes. I know my friend in Capitol Hill complains about them a lot.
And good point about local control of prosecution. And property crime. Like I 71, the problems have to be identified and addressed in a systematic fashion.
But yes, you get the Larry Krasner tension about "our youth." No question that there is overpolicing, mass incarceration, etc.
OTOH, there are criminals, and they shouldn't be excused. Crime is a quality of life issue. Losing residents and businesses who don't want to deal is an indicator of failure.
You have the Bratton broken windows lesson, pre Bratton NYC, the Lindsay years and rise in crime, the SF, Seattle and Portland examples now.
As I say as someone in DC in the 80s and 90s (and my friend 60s and 70s), after experiencing that I would never want to not hold the line on disorder.
I have no problem addressing structural racism, community improvement, etc. My equity planning and social urbanism writings prove that.
But it's very easy for disorder to get out of hand (comparable to Trum and the presidency) and it's really hard to contain it. So don't let it out.
At my park, am dealing with homeless issues. Because it's somewhat separated by wide roads, it hasn't been a big issue. But now it's becoming persistent in one area, and fortunately, even though we want to be "compassionate" a bunch of board members are not content to let it grow.
And this is a little issue in the scheme of things.
RE: Bowser and "input". She's got no notions of input, process, or how to get a community on her side. Her way or the highway.
And most of the city council is on the same boat now. A result of a highly disengaged electorate where maybe 10% of residents are politically engaged. Pay attention to the 10% not the 90%.
RE: Pretrial Services. So it's partially the result of a few local horror stories of people on pretrial murdering someone else. Also I'd question if it was really a case of best practices or whether it was because it was a federally funded and federally run agency that gave it prominence.
The city's new jitjusu on i-71 is good -- turn it all into medical cannabis and give everyone a card. I think it's a plan, and not a bad one, but I have a feeling there will NOT be much a stick to shut down the grey market.
Even when you're engaged, they aren't into receiving "divergent views." My joke was that I did critical analysis but they saw it as personal criticism. They only want support and praise.
I mean, I was floored when Bowser transition team said they were looking for innovative ideas. Where were they the last 8 years?
And there just doesn't seem to be much focus on lit/best practice review.
Wrt PTS, I'm guessing with increased violence and drugs that increase paranoia (cf https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jan/22/fentanyl-methamphetamine-drugs-epidemic-us) they need to tighten requirements on remand. That's a job for "big data," which normally I might be skeptical of, not here (cf Minority Report).
Wrt legalization, so far I am pretty sure the gray market continues to exist, reducing profitability.
Wrt focusing police resources on evident problems
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/el-salvador-murders-plummet-by-over-half-2022-amid-gang-crackdown-2023-01-03/
What set me off here was
1) Bowser announcing a summit with one days notice;
2) Yes, the El Salvador thing -- where the type of measures I've suggested show they work. DC sends about 1500-2000 people a year to prison. I'd suggest a target of more like 5000 a year for 10 years to break the pipeline, and we're talking about 25+ years -- so you are in the late 40s upon release and your testosterone is dropping.
3) This was also in my feed about 5 minutes before you posted:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-10/how-did-yucatan-become-mexico-s-safest-state?sref=4NgeXq8Q
"Mexico's Safest State Is Seeing a Real Estate Boom
Yucatán’s governor says supporting the local police is key to the low crime rate, which is boosting population and investment in the region. "
"Governor Mauricio Vila says this is the fruit of relying on local police rather than just federal armed forces — paying them well, and giving them the technology they need, such as security cameras and machines to read license plates.
“The most important thing in any organization is its human capital,” said Vila, 43, in an interview in the state capital Mérida, making the case that Yucatán's success was not merely the result of its history or geography."
Mexico is very murderous. Nationally about 3x more common than the US. Yucatan is around 2. DC is around 18 per 100,000, double the national average.
You're not the best person to complain about because you are not part of the problem. We can quibble about your "marshall plan for EOTR" but any solution involves carrots. It also involves sticks.
When it comes to crime, sticks are more effective. Until you are afraid of the police and the consequences of getting caught, why bother?
Hmm, this is the tension between maintaining and ensuring public safety and the carceral state.
I hate to put a number on how many people should be jailed, as to me it implies some bit of arbitrariness.
OTOH, as a professor was quoted in a Megan McArdle column, at the end of the day some people need to be "policed," that you have to accept social control as part of the civil society equation.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/videos-of-portland-protesters-show-a-complicated-relationship-with-police-and-policing/2020/08/19/3887227c-e24b-11ea-8dd2-d07812bf00f7_story.html
The problem again is Krasner like. Some people believe because of structural racism and/or overpolicing that this nullifies responsibility for criminality, leading to a form of "defining deviance down," and letting people off.
Eg fare evasion. A lot of the people who do it do other crimes. Plus letting it slide diminishes respect for the transit system and encourages anti social behavior on the system, leading to further degradation and people's perception that the system is unsafe (eg the David Gunn interaction with Bratton), leading to a spiral of decline.
Extend that over other areas. People's behavior in the public space, shoplifting and even worse, organized retail crime, drug use, encampments, etc.
While yes, I argue for significant place based investments in low income communities to deal with structural racism, my experience as a crime victim in DC from the late 80s into the early 2000s, and living in DC then more generally, and later working on revitalization, means that I am hardcore against disorder. Safe communities grow, unsafe communities decline.
I don't think it's hypocritical to be tough on violent crime and repetitive crime (eg shoplifting, property crimes, stolen vehicles etc.) and believe in social urbanism related investment.
PLUS, YOUTH! The problem with the approach in DC is that a lot of youth are let off in response to committing crimes and they end up believing there are no consequences. So they keep doing crimes, and escalating their crimes and violence.
Sadly DC seems to be providing a great opportunity for research in how to deal with youth crime and whether or not a permissive approach leads to worse behavior further accentuated as adults.
So I don't have a problem with more incarceration focused on violent criminals, but do worry about setting what can be seen as an arbitrary target.
2. One day notice for the summit. Yes, that got me and is typical of DC government, because they don't really want interaction. I don't even see how that is a legal public meeting, without 7 days public notice.
DC doesn't have an overall plan, just a land use plan, but I suggested in the 2008 revision process having an element on civic engagement in the Comprehensive Plan, to put guidelines on it.
DC has a habit of quick notice meetings, and locating meetings in places at the very edge of W7 and W8 making it incredibly difficult to get there. They might as well build a meeting facility at Southern Avenue Station (which technically is in Maryland, but on the border).
It's a real sign of disrespect.
Anyway, they said the comp plan is only about land use (true) so that civic engagement is irrelevant.
Fun weekend on U ST. By my count, and DC police alerts, I'm counting 4 homicides within 5 blocks of me.
I agree that numerical targets are a bad idea, but I included number to give an idea of the scale.
The homicide rate in El Salvador was similar to the "bad" days in DC for AA. (100 per 100,000) Right now it's running about half that (50 per 100,000).
The target is the white homicide rate in the US (about 3 per 100,000). Japan, by the way is at .2. Germany is .8.
I agree political will is not there to drive numbers to that level, but El Salvador shows what is possible.
https://news.yahoo.com/binds-colombian-gangs-peace-151200584.html
A renewed truce between rival gangs rests on a compassion for – and from – those seeking a way out of violence.
F* about U Street. There's always been the issue of where the city's young adults congregate and security and violence--Adams Morgan, Georgetown, U Street, H Street, Gallery Place.
Drugs, alcohol, money, guns, drunkenness, fighting.
Hip hop concerts. I remember the killing of a police officer at the old Ibex on Georgia Avenue in the early 90s which was two blocks from the police station.
Saw New Jack City in the late 80s at a theater in 8th Street SE. Scary. Similarly went to a De la Soul concert in the mid 90s at 830 Club.
This gets back to the issue of having to disproportionately police ("serve") young black men. It's reality. It's not like white people in W2 or W3 are marauding.
Speaking of big data, this dude's actions seem to indicate worse actions ahead.
https://sports.yahoo.com/grizzlies-suspend-ja-morant-second-154746036.html
The Memphis Grizzlies have suspended star Ja Morant after he appeared to flash a gun in an Instagram Live video two months after he was involved in a similar i...
Md. teen fatally shot was driver in fatal crash two months ago
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/05/14/kendall-batson-cayliy-haygood-wise-high-school/
17-year-old sentenced for shooting of Commanders RB Brian Robinson
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/05/15/juvenile-robbery-convicted-washington-commanders-robinson/
Bowser unveils legislative proposal to stiffen penalties for gun crime
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/05/15/bowser-legislative-proposal-crime/
So you kill a NFL player, spend 3 years in juvie detention and you're free. I'm not sure which is worse here, the judge that allowed them to be tried as a children or the laws the council passed that allow this.
As far as I can tell Ja Morant did nothing illegal -- you can carry a gun around -- although I strongly suspect he is not permitted correctly.
You long ago cited a book on "code of the street". The various violence interrupters talk a lot about online beefs turn into shootings and that is how I'd interpret the behavior.
I'd just point out that behavior and lifestyle is not compatible with urban life. You shouldn't be coddling it, and for instance I'd make it a condition of juvie release is you are banned for life from any DC government benefits. No Drivers license. No subsidized housing. No welfare. No insurance. Take you game elsewhere.
Letting gun/violent crime juveniles be tried as juveniles provides inadequate communication that crime is bad. It doesn't deescalate their behavior.
Same for killings. Those two girls who killed the Uber driver. Sure they were young but "thou shalt not kill". I don't think it matters that their brains are still developing.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/teens-get-maximum-sentence-death-uber-eats-driver-n1273276
It is always interesting that similar crimes in area counties like Montgomery get prosecuted much harder.
https://www.curbed.com/2023/05/san-francisco-doom-loop.html
"Spiraling in San Francisco’s Doom Loop What it’s like to live in a city that no longer believes its problems can be fixed."
And the CNN show I haven't watched yet. Will read, thanks.
We're beating this one to death.
I'd just note the philly elections, where the candidate with the most neighbooyrdhod policing policy won -- mostly due to the black vote.
Also deeply ironic that Bowser at the latest Hill grilling was coming as the adult in the room. She actually started the bomb in crime by disbanding jump teams and reducing police staffing in her first year of office That said the post George Floyd crime wave was way beyond that, but she did set the table.
Probably those steps contributed. But the real rise in crime came during covid and since. But if I recall, murders were rising.
Oh, and you only have to be minimally competent to outshine those Republicans.
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