The good news: Law enforcement agencies throughout the nation reported a 4.4 percent decrease in overall violent crime for 2009. The District of Columbia reported 66 murders so far in 2009, 17 less than last year, according to the FBI’s latest Uniform Crime Report: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/2009prelimsem/index.html
But before Mayor Adrian Fenty and Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier break out the champagne to celebrate, they should take a look at the crime rate in similar sized cities.
With a population of 591,833, Washington is comparable to Atlanta (pop: 533,016). Both cities also have large low-income African American communities. Echoing the national trend, crime in both cities is on the downswing.
But 66 people were murdered in D.C. last year, compared to just 43 in Atlanta. Washington also led Atlanta in the total number of incidents of violent crime: 3,736 in D.C. versus 3,023 in Atlanta.
Shockingly, your chances of being a murder victim are five times higher if you live in the District of Columbia instead of New York City, where there was one homicide per every 40,907 Big Apple residents in 2009. Compare that figure to one murder per every 8,907 residents of the nation’s capital.
