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Comment by gottorf | Hacker News Reader

Sure. At a rate of 26.6 homicides per 100k as of the conclusion of 2024, it would belong in the top 10 most murderous cities in the US, and would appear to fall in the top 100 in the world.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. There are a handful of other American cities with worse crime, so we should give DC a pass?

Constitutionally it belongs to the federal government, which devolved some level of home rule to the local government starting about 50 years ago. The evidence seems clear that local authorities aren't doing the job well.

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When you don't give the local authorities the money and autonomy to do so it should not be a surprise that they cannot effectively do their duty. When you take a look at the trend of the data over time it doesn't tell a story of crime that isn't being managed. It may not be as quick or as thorough, but it has been downward trending.

> When you don't give the local authorities the money and autonomy to do so

DC spent over $26k per resident, well above the overall US federal budget of roughly $20k per person. And the DC budget doesn't even have to account for a globe-spanning military!

What autonomy is it lacking that it can't put repeat violent offenders behind bars?

> When you take a look at the trend of the data over time it doesn't tell a story of crime that isn't being managed. It may not be as quick or as thorough, but it has been downward trending.

Outside of six whole years, the homicide rate in DC hasn't been under 20/100k in 50 years. "Downward trending" from 80 in 1990 to 20s now is great in isolation, but terrible when you realize that places like Paris and London are in the low single digits.

Perhaps it is worth going to actually read some of the limitations (representation, budget, taxation) of what the government of DC is actually capable of doing versus doing a simple straight line math exercise. Crime is a problem, but taken within context it isn't anywhere near as bad as Baltimore or Philadelphia.

You keep citing the homicide rate but do not consider the geography and constraints of the capital region, i.e., some of the crime and violent offenders are from non-residents. You can't simply compare it to a city like London or Paris for many reasons.

> Crime is a problem, but taken within context it isn't anywhere near as bad as Baltimore or Philadelphia.

Baltimore and Philly are worse, yes. That's little reprieve for the average Joe living in DC surrounded by disorder. DC, being exclusively federal territory, has the unique legal situation where the president could deploy the National Guard for policing.

> You keep citing the homicide rate but do not consider the geography and constraints of the capital region, i.e., some of the crime and violent offenders are from non-residents. You can't simply compare it to a city like London or Paris for many reasons.

I don't understand your line of reasoning. Do you care to clarify? Neither London, nor Paris, nor any other city in this country are islands where entry and exit are controlled. Some American cities with really bad crime, like St. Louis or Philly, abut state lines and likely get a lot of cross-state criminal traffic as well.

I think the problem that many people, including me, have with your justification is very similar to trumps own televised justification: its vague and selective.

Fact is there are other "worthy" candidate cities to deploy NG to, to counter crime. Additionally, trump is unreliable and generally unfit as a POTUS. Given these two, the concern about trumps tendency to abuse of power, which he demonstrated already, is a very valid response to him mobilizing NG in the most sensitive political region.

You cant calm these concerns with comparably similar crime rates.

Ontop, isnt it an assumption, that NG can actually help with rampand crime? I imagine they project hard force on the streets but do not react to 911 calls.

Also, your budget justification was vague too. The total spending per capita does not allow any clues on relative spending on law enforcement. There must be a reason why its significantly higher and maybe thats why LE falls short too.

> Fact is there are other "worthy" candidate cities to deploy NG to, to counter crime.

DC is unique among those cities because it is federal territory where the federal government has exclusive jurisdiction, according to the constitution. It's harder to deploy the National Guard to St. Louis, for example, because you also have to deal with the government of Missouri (and probably that of Illinois, too, since the metro area spans both states).

In fact, a senator famously called for troops to be deployed to those cities in the height of the unrest in 2020[0]. He was excoriated for it by his political opponents, and the editor in charge of the NYT opinion pages resigned over allowing that piece to be published. So there are people who would like to see dramatically stronger law enforcement everywhere, not just DC.

[0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protes...

Politics aside: Agreed; you’re correct about DC being wholly unique which is why it’s difficult to compare to other cities (by the numbers) for a lot of regions. There really is not an option other than the National Guard in such a situation hence why there’s a carve out in the 1970s (?) act.

I am avoiding the argument regarding stronger law enforcement because there is a very little vague basis for it in this case. But legally speaking, it is within the letter of the law because there isn’t another option without triggering the Posse Comitius act.

I wonder if the fact that of the top ten murderous states, nine of them are run by Republicans has anything to do with the fact that Trump hasn't even vaguely hinted at National Guard deployments there.

It's probably more the fact that DC constitutionally belongs to the federal government, so it's a lot easier for Trump to unilaterally deploy the National Guard there.

He didn’t seem to have any problem doing so in California…

And then last time anyone wanted him to deploy them in DC he apparently couldn’t because the mayor didn’t allow him to…

It’s got near zero to do with that.

How is it compared to New Orleans (34.7) since you mentioned Louisiana? Or Baltimore (58.3 WTF???) which is next door?

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