This is the sort of data that feels particularly relevant to the discussion about the District of Columbia’s criminal code, which was, for a day or two, a controversy of national importance.
Most arrests by police officers in D.C. do not result in criminal charges filed in court, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
In fiscal year 2022, which ended in September, the USAO received 15,315 arrests from police working in D.C. and declined to prosecute 10,261, or 67 percent of them. That figure includes 8,238 declined misdemeanor arrests (72 percent) and 2,023 declined felony arrests (53 percent).
As the Washington City Paper notes, “D.C. is unique in that the federal government controls most of its local criminal justice system, including prosecution of adult crimes. That means the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, who is appointed by the president, rather than a locally elected or appointed prosecutor, reviews arrests made by police in D.C. and files criminal charges in D.C. Superior Court.”
The process of fighting crime and ultimately deterring it and reducing crime rates requires three parts: laws on the books that criminalize dangerous, aggressive, or menacing behavior, along with sufficiently lengthy sentences; police that will effectively investigate the crime, identify the perpetrator, and arrest them, even if the task may be dangerous; and prosecutors who are willing and capable of convicting those perpetrators before judges and juries. In fact, for more than three decades, a stern, gravelly-voiced announcer has informed any of us watching NBC in prime time, “in the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate, yet equally important, groups: the police, who investigate crime; and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders.”
Some days, it feels fair to wonder if the nation’s capital has any of these parts in good working order.