Is the extra law enforcement presence in DC working?
President Donald Trump’s administration has released data detailing arrests in D.C., and it’s ramped up the number of National Guard troops and federal agents lining city streets, but it’s still unclear whether that effort will be effective.
It’s been three days since Trump took control of the D.C. police department as part of a broad crackdown on crime in the District.
On Monday, hours after Trump’s announcement, the White House said its Law Enforcement Working Group made 23 arrests and seized six illegal guns. The group includes local agencies, such as the Metro Transit Police Department and D.C. police, and federal departments, such as the U.S. Marshals Service. A White House official said they’re not disclosing which agencies made those arrests.
Meanwhile, according to data obtained by WTOP, D.C. police alone separately made 67 arrests on Aug. 11. Officers made 87 arrests and recovered seven guns the prior Monday, Aug. 4, and made 78 arrests and recovered eight guns on July 28.
“The complex nature of law enforcement, and the effectiveness of law enforcement is certainly being called into question here,” said Rod Brunson, chair and professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland.
The presence of troops or extra officers alone may not completely deter crime, Brunson said. Instead, it could result in displacement, which happens when people look to commit a crime somewhere that doesn’t have high crime rates or physical violence, and where there’s less of a law enforcement presence.
“It’s all about the execution, and it depends on how those additional resources are being deployed,” Brunson said. “What instructions are being given and what is the mission?”
The image of more law enforcement across the city will comfort some and unsettle others, Brunson said. Arrests and many other measurements of crime are “imperfect in various ways,” he said.
A focus on arrests, for one, doesn’t reveal whether a stop and seizure is constitutional or whether someone who is arrested will ultimately be charged with a crime, Brunson said.
While D.C. police may have been able to make the additional arrests without extra resources, they may choose not to, “either because they understand the desires and the priorities of the community, and maybe the community has a different priority on higher calls for service, as opposed to some of the arrests they could make,” he said.
The 23 arrests made Monday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, were for things such as gun offenses, stalking, driving under the influence and lewd acts.
Clearance rates, meaning cases cleared by arrest, for deadly and nondeadly shootings could be a more insightful metric to monitor, Brunson said.
“If those law enforcement resources, additional resources, could be used to make sure that justice is delivered in situations where people are most fearful as it relates to gun violence, then we could look back and say that maybe this was a good idea after all,” Brunson said.