ANALYSIS – The violent crime wave in our nation’s capital is going unabated. While violence is dropping a bit in other major cities, murders, shootings and carjackings, often by repeat offenders, including a lot of criminal teens, are off the charts in D.C.
The Economist reports that violent crime is up a whopping 40% so far this year; homicides are up 30% and robberies are up 70%. A spike in juvenile crime is part of the problem: carjackings committed by teens rose by 64%. By the end of December, D.C. will have had its deadliest year in decades. (RELATED: Man Breaks Into Ex-Girlfriend’s House With Sledgehammer, Is Promptly Shot By Her New Boyfriend)
Democrat Congressman Henry Cuellar from Texas was carjacked at gunpoint October 2nd, making his the 754th carjacking this year.
Republican lawmakers are certain that Washington’s surge in violent crime is due to the district’s far left Democratic leaders. Mitch McConnell, the Senate’s minority leader, warned that the district’s “soft-on-crime” leaders needed “adult supervision.”
The district’s crime lab responsible for processing forensic data is also still defunct (since 2021 when it lost its accreditation due to mistakes and coverups), and its only juvenile detention center seems to be failing.
And while Democrats still try to blame a proliferation of guns as the main factor, always referring to shootings as ‘gun violence, rather than ‘criminal shootings,’ they ignore the two biggest factors in D.C.’s huge spike in violence: repeat criminal offenders and lack of prosecution by Team Biden’s U.S. Attorney in DC.
One major factor is that a relatively small number of repeat offending criminals commit most of the ‘gun violence.’ This factor is also in big part a result the second factor. (RELATED: Soros-Backed DA Victim Of Car Burglary In City She Declared ‘Safe’)
As The Economist points out:
Repeat offenders are responsible for most crimes. Murder suspects in America’s capital have on average been arrested 11 times before they kill, according to the police. The National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform found that just 500 people commit up to 70% of Washington’s gun crimes each year. Yet somehow, the District of Columbia cannot stop them.
So, rather than only trying to get guns off the streets, the bigger focus should be on getting them out of the hands of these 500 criminals, and then getting the same 500 thugs off the streets.
But that brings us to the second major factor. Lack of prosecution by the Biden Department of Justice (DOJ) – since the U.S. Attorney handles local crimes in the capital.
The Economist explains:
In Washington, unlike any other American city, the us attorney is responsible for prosecuting both local and federal crimes (and defending the federal government in civil cases). The office’s split personality means that resources must be rationed. After January 6th 2021, for example, the former us attorney pulled staff off local cases to help prosecute insurrectionists [rioters] who had stormed the Capitol.
In 2022 the office declined to prosecute 67% of local arrests, up from 31% in 2016. That is much higher than in other cities: according to the Washington Post, last year Philadelphia prosecutors dropped just 4% of cases, Cook County, which includes Chicago, 14% and Detroit 33%. Such a high dismissal rate could well be discouraging police from making arrests.
Then there is also one added factor, the D.C. judge problem. The Economist continues:
Because there is no state apparatus, district judges who hear local cases are nominated by the president and approved by the Senate, just like federal judges. Since presidents are eager to fill circuit-court posts across the country to increase their political influence, Washington’s judges get sidelined. As a result the district has 12 vacancies and seven judges awaiting Senate confirmation. That is unusual: in Pennsylvania just two posts are unfilled, in neighbouring Maryland one. With nearly one-third of the bench empty, fewer cases go to trial. The backlog is not only an injustice; it also pulls the punch of a quick conviction.
And even when these judges do hear a case, they are often dangerously soft. In a tragic incident last week, a female 15-year-old carjacker caused a fatal crash, but a superior-court judge had sent the teenager home pending trial on robbery charges just six days earlier.
There was no room at the D.C. juvenile facility. According to the mayor, this was the girl’s seventh offense.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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