A closed-door meeting Wednesday between D.C.’s mayor and police chief and members of Congress may chart a path forward to address surging crime in the nation’s capital. 

The most recent data from the city’s police department on Wednesday indicate the city has already seen 253 homicides in 2023 alone — a 32 percent increase from last year. 

There have also been 925 carjackings to date — 77 percent of which involved guns — and the city this week is in the second phase of providing free Apple AirTags to residents with the aim of tracking property if it gets stolen. The city is even recommending that residents place trackers in their winter coats, as expensive outerwear has been a target of thieves lately. 

Crime in the nation’s capital is affecting businesses that have had to take security into their own hands, Axios reports, with one taquería spending more than $4,000 a week on private security while another business, Georgetown Events, spent more than $450,000 this year across its D.C. venues.

Wednesday’s meeting, the Washington Post reports, was confirmed by the House Oversight Committee and is a way for the city and the federal government to discuss crime issues away from the public eye. A representative from the House Oversight Committee was not immediately available for comment on Wednesday, nor was its Chairman, Representative James Comer, or its ranking member, Representative Jamie Raskin.

“The closed-door meeting between D.C. officials and members of Congress, who have seen their own colleagues and staff members become victims of crime in D.C., is an encouraging sign of collaboration and a recognition that everyone has a stake in addressing this problem,” the Council on Criminal Justice’s chief policy counsel, Marc Levin, tells the Sun.

He adds that while data from the Council on Criminal Justice show crime in most places is above pre-pandemic levels, violent crime overall has declined over the past two years. Yet, he says, “Washington D.C. is a deeply troubling exception as violent crime continues to escalate there.” 

The closed-door session, he says, is “more likely to be fruitful than a public hearing that could devolve into a blame game.”

“Some aspects of D.C.’s criminal justice system, such as police and jails, are under city control while other aspects, such as the prosecution of adults and probation supervision, are under federal control, which further illustrates the importance of a collaborative approach to funding and policy making,” Mr. Levin says.

D.C.’s unique position as the nation’s capital, as the Sun has reported, has led to increasing calls for Congress to intervene. 

The closed-doors meeting shows that “at least some in the mayor’s office are starting to realize that crime is increasingly a dire problem in the district,” a legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, Zack Smith, tells the Sun.

“Increasingly, the mayor and the local council seem to be at odds with each other,” he says. While many of the mayor’s proposed solutions are “window dressing,” he says, “at least she is taking the step of acknowledging that there is a problem, which is a stark contrast from what we heard from the City Council just earlier this year when Chairman Phil Mendelson was in front of Congress and said there is no crime crisis in the district of Columbia.” 

D.C. has also experienced a surge in youth crime, enough to prompt a public emergency declaration. Mr. Smith says criminals — especially juvenile offenders — are not being held accountable for committing crime, he adds. 

“I think Congress needs to step in, they need to make sure that the District has a moderate, comprehensive criminal code that will work to protect people who live, work, and visit in the district and allow victims of violent crimes to receive justice,” he says. “It needs to hold criminals appropriately accountable.” 

D.C.’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, wrote on X on Monday that “we will drive down crime” and that her team is working both at a local level and “with our federal partners.” 

“I’ve been at this for 15 years, and I’ve seen spikes in crime, and I see our team work together trying everything,” she says. “The community is fed up, they’re doing all that they can with prevention, opportunity, and accountability as well.” 

Ms. Bowser says efforts from different partnerships will begin to “combine to work.” 

“I won’t be able to tell you if it’s a single thing. It won’t be a single thing,” she says. “But I will tell you every time that I see gaps in our law that I believe are making us unsafe, and I’ll advance those to the Council.”

Representatives of the mayor’s office did not respond to a request by the Sun for comment.