Did Trump’s Crime Crackdown In DC Work?

Well, yes, because Reuters says the answer “is complicated”

Analysis-Did Trump’s crime crackdown in Washington work? It’s complicated

After mobilizing hundreds of federal agents and thousands of soldiers to the nation’s capital, President Donald Trump has declared victory over what he called a “crisis” of crime in Washington, and floated the idea of using such deployments to U.S. cities as training grounds for the military.

“We have a very safe city now,” Trump said this week. “The country is going to be safe. We do it one at a time.”

What’s not clear is whether Trump’s show of force in Washington has had a significant, or lasting, effect on curbing crime.

A Reuters review of public safety records and interviews with four experts on crime suggest that it is premature to draw sweeping conclusions about the impact of Trump’s deployments. While some types of crime – especially gun offenses – have become less frequent since Trump ordered troops into the city, overall violent crime hasn’t changed that much.

Realistically, I’ll agree that the short term use of the National Guard can only have short term effects. Car thefts/jackings dropped dramatically. A lot of the property crime that would have occurred in tourist areas dropped a lot. But, in order for this to continue the DC police have to have the backing of the city council, the mayor, and the Democrats, which would allow them to do their job and to fill the empty spaces, being about 16% below target. Cops have to know that the city has their back when they do their job.

And, of course, the National Guard is still in D.C. They do not have to bust criminals: all they need to do is be around for criminals to decide “nah, not right now.”

In the month before Trump’s surge, people in Washington reported an average of about seven violent crimes each day, according to police department records.

That average dropped in mid-August after Trump’s show of force began, to between five and six such incidents a day. But the number of violent offenses went back up to an average of about seven each day over the two weeks that ended September 28.

A lot of violent crimes in this city which votes 97% Democrat, eh?

The number of violent crimes that involve firearms, however, has dropped more noticeably to 65 reports a day, from 97 in the four weeks before Trump’s surge.

That’s too sudden of a change to be passed off as a coincidence, said Peter Moskos, a criminologist at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York.

Stopping a lot of the casual gun play in D.C. You know, the nation’s capital.

The Trump administration claims the crackdown worked because people reported fewer crimes during the surge than during the same period in 2024. Jackson, the White House spokeswoman, said that over 30 days, total crime dropped 17 percent, homicide dropped 50 percent, assaults with dangerous weapons dropped 16 percent and robberies dropped 22 percent from the same period last year.

But crime levels in Washington – and many other cities – were falling before Trump ordered troops to D.C., according to reports from the city’s police force and the FBI.

They really just don’t want to give Trump credit. It may have been dropping from when the criminal George Floyd protest days, but, it is still higher than pre-COVID, and it dropped a lot during the Trump crackdown. That’s real. The liberals in the media do not like that. One would think they would want to be safe when in D.C., not be concerned they’ll be turned into a crime statistic.