D.C.’s crime numbers are all the buzz. But how do we interpret them accurately?

Amid President Trump’s ongoing feud with the local leaders of the nation's capital, both sides have pointed to crime statistics to make their case on how safe — or unsafe — the city really is.

It has been a week since Trump declared a crime emergency in Washington, D.C., and deployed the National Guard to patrol the city's streets.

In its reasoning for the move, the White House described crime in D.C. as "out of control," noting that the city's homicide rate in 2024 was nearly double what it was in 2012. Meanwhile, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser pushed back and noted that violent crime is at a 30-year low. She acknowledged there was a crime spike in 2023 but argued that violence has significantly declined since then.

Amid the back-and-forth, questions about the accuracy of data have also surf