The crime rate in Washington, D.C., is plummeting. President Donald Trump may be despised by most D.C. residents, but he has made the city safer for those who live in and visit the nation’s capital.
The president and U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro deserve credit for supporting D.C.’s Metropolitan Police force in this effort.
Violent crime in D.C. fell by 29% in 2025, the first year of Trump’s second term, with big drops in homicides and robberies. And in 2026, things are continuing to improve.
Homicides and sex abuse are both down 65% from this time last year, and property crime is down 28%. While assault with a dangerous weapon rates have increased in the last year, this is a result of broader offense categorization and charging standards.
Democrats point out that D.C. crime was falling prior to Trump’s return to the Oval Office, and it’s true that violent crime finally fell from 2023 to 2025. But the most recent data shows that the significant and sustained reduction in crime is directly correlated with Trump’s return to power.
It should also be noted that the true scale of the 2023-25 crime decline is unknown. That’s because of the systematic underreporting or downgrading of crimes under former Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith. That crime rates are still falling now, with more accurately reported data, lends credibility to Trump’s claims of success here.
Prosecutions also matter. In this regard, D.C. has benefited greatly from the departure of Biden-era U.S. Attorney for D.C. Matthew Graves.
Graves was notoriously lax in prosecuting criminal cases, especially on matters affecting quality of life concerns such as drug use, carrying of firearms without a license, and theft. It was only when public outcry over D.C.’s soaring crime rates became politically toxic that Graves began to pursue more prosecutions. Even then, prosecution rates remained grossly inadequate. Graves also effectively ignored juvenile offenses, fostering a city-wide sense of impunity that led to rampant robbery and carjacking rates by teenagers.
Pirro has changed this. Where Pirro’s immediate predecessor embraced clownish sycophancy, she has focused on securing the city. Pirro has pursued prosecutions at far higher rates than Graves, including for juvenile offenders. Her zero-tolerance policy has meant more habitual criminals are spending longer off the streets. Police morale has increased as officers have realized an arrest might actually lead to a prison sentence rather than a demoralizing arrest-release-repeat dynamic. A de facto end to cashless bail has also prevented criminals from easily returning to the streets.
And although it is ultimately ill-advised to have uniformed military personnel perform law enforcement duties, D.C. National Guard deployments have borne dividends in deterring criminality and providing D.C. Police with greater situational awareness.
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None of this would have happened had the D.C. government been left to its own devices. Mayor Muriel Bowser ignored rising crime for years and has treated the city’s astonishingly incompetent 911 call center as a dumping ground for incompetent political allies. D.C. has also suffered under unapologetically pro-crime politicians such as Charles Allen and Brianne Nadeau. Indeed, D.C. Councilmember Trayvon White has been charged with corruption!
Trump is an imperfect president. But there’s no question that his return to office and appointment of Pirro have restored a semblance of public safety in the nation’s capital. Trump’s divisiveness notwithstanding, that’s something everyone should support.