Slayings in the District dropped about 8 percent this year, bringing D.C.’s homicide total to its lowest number in more than 45 years. As of Thursday, 131 homicides had been reported in the District, the fewest since 1963, when the city recorded 95 killings. Last year, 143 were slain.
| Homicide totals | ||||||||||||
| Jurisdiction | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | |||||||||
| D.C. | 186 | 143 | 131 | |||||||||
| Prince George’s | 106 | 86 | 90 | |||||||||
| Montgomery | 21 | 13 | 17 | |||||||||
| Fairfax | 22 | 14 | 15Arlington | 4 | 2 | 1 | ||||||
| Alexandria | 4 | 5 | 1 | |||||||||
| Prince William | 12 | 10 | 9 | |||||||||
| Loudoun | 3 | 3 | 1 | |||||||||
| Source: Area police departments | ||||||||||||
Around the Washington region, homicides stayed largely steady, with slight increases in Montgomery, Prince George’s and Fairfax counties, and small drops in Arlington, Alexandria, Prince William and Loudoun.
Police and experts say many factors influence homicide numbers, and there isn’t a clear reason driving the region’s results. Factors that can affect the number of murders include police strategy, the economy, weather, the availability of guns and demographics.
But experts said one thing is clear: Homicides in the District have dropped dramatically since the late 1980s and 1990s, when the crack cocaine epidemic fueled more than 400 slayings a year.
This year’s 8-percent drop in the number of killings is significant, said Paul Butler a George Washington University law professor and former federal prosecutor.
“We’re no longer the murder capital of the United States,” he said.
D.C.’s improvements come as homicides are declining in major cities nationwide, and some that is due to smarter policing, said Gary LaFree, a criminology professor at the University of Maryland.
In the 1960s and 1970s, LaFree said, police largely viewed the homicide rate “as if it were a natural phenomenon they couldn’t do anything about.”
But that attitude has changed, he said. Police are increasingly focusing their efforts on crime hot spots, rather than randomly patrolling neighborhoods, LaFree said.
“Concentrating the resources you do have on problem spots, which I think police are getting much better at, is a really good strategy,” he said.
Creating trust in law enforcement also makes people more likely to cooperate with police and avoid breaking the law, Butler said. D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier was one of the most popular figures in Mayor Adrian Fenty’s administration, and Vincent Gray, who will be inaugurated Sunday, has asked her to stay on.
With 90 homicides, Prince George’s County saw a small uptick from the 86 the county reported last year. Killings also rose to 17 in Montgomery County, up from 13 last year. And Fairfax County has recorded 15 homicides, up from 14 in 2009.
“The numbers vary,” said Montgomery police spokeswoman Lucille Baur. Both Baur and 1st Sgt. Kim Chinn, spokeswoman for Prince William County police, said many homicides are disputes between two people who know each other and have a disagreement, and are not random killings by strangers.
Such crimes, police say, are harder for law enforcement to control.
