Criminality in Adams Morgan

Many neighborhoods in Washington DC have undergone significant economic change over the past two decades. This shifting economic climate has in many cases brought about a change in neighborhood character. One of the most important indicators in this regard is census data, which is available concerning both poverty and crime rates.

Adams Morgan is composed of four main census tracts, 38, 40.01, 40.02, and 42.01. In three of these tracts, poverty decreased over the period of 1990 to 2010, indicating that some gentrification is taking place.

The census breaks up crime data into two categories, violent crime and property crime. Two of Adams Morgan's tracts showed a decrease in violent crime, one tract showed an increase, and the final tract showed no change. Interestingly enough, the tract that showed the increase in violent crime is also the tract with a large amount of high density housing. All tracts showed a decrease in property crime.

Interestingly, of the two tracts that showed a decrease in violent crime, one tract showed an increase in the poverty rate. This is a perfect example of Jane Jacobs' observations that a neighborhood's primary source of policing is the community that exists along a neighborhood's streets. Self-policing is vital to a neighborhood, as it preserves the strength and status of the community.

As for the one tract that showed a decrease in the violent crime rate correlated with a decrease in the poverty rate, this can most likely be explained by the fact that higher income individuals have a lower propensity towards violent crime, and thus as higher income residents replace lower income residents, crime will decrease.

Adams Morgan also has a Latino liaison unit of the Washington DC Police Department. This is especially important, because Adams Morgan, as well as nearby Columbia Heights, have historically been immigrant neighborhoods and contain a large number of Spanish speaking residents.

This represents another aspect of policing that is currently starting to be deployed in many urban areas, one in which the police hold dialogue with the community and offenders to inform them what the consequences of criminality might be, entice them to stop, and provide resources to help them.

This approach, commonly known as Ceasefire, is advocated by criminologist David Kennedy and was first tried in Boston in the early 1990s, but was ended because of inadequate explanations of the program to new members of the police department and a lack of commitment from the broader city government.

Kennedy later went on to implement this in other cities with a similar result, that it caused a dramatic drop in gang violence and drug crime, but it was not handed down from one administration to the next, and ultimately failed.

In his book, titled Don't Shoot, Kennedy discusses how he then went on to implement this program in other cities, enlisting help from mayors and other city officials to insure that the program would last as personnel changes within departments took place. Cincinnati has become the most recent poster child of this program, commencing its version in 2009.

Washington DC had its own version of this program in the mid 1990s, focusing mainly on gun violence and then-illegal gun ownership. I was unable to determine if this program had been implemented to focus on gangs, drugs, or domestic violence.