Even as national homicide rates decline, troubling numbers out of Washington, D.C., are leading to calls for Congress to intervene to address the district’s surging crime rate.

Last year, D.C. police recorded the most homicides in 26 years — since 1997 — tracking 274 homicides, a 35 percent spike from the previous year. The crime rates in the nation’s capital stand out from the rest of the country, where homicides are declining overall.

“Murder plummeted in the United States in 2023, likely at one of the fastest rates of decline ever recorded,” a crime data analyst, Jeff Asher, concluded after compiling data from more than 175 cities. “Murder is down 12.7 percent,” Mr. Asher noted, adding that there have been declines in 73 percent of cities, including Detroit, St. Louis, and Baltimore. 

Yet, D.C.’s crime is “out of control,” a senior fellow with the National Center for Public Policy Research, Horace Cooper, told the Sun, even though the nation’s capital “should be an example of what can be done across the nation to end the crime wave in our cities.”

“The local government has fallen down on the job. It is crucial that Congress intervene to restore order,” he said. 

Federal lawmakers took some action last year to oppose D.C. city officials and address crime issues, including overriding a contentious local plan to soften penalties for violent criminal offenders. In December, D.C. leaders, including Mayor Muriel Bowser, signaled a willingness to cooperate with federal lawmakers to try “everything” to reduce crime. 

“We need a federally appointed crime board like the fiscal board that Congress created in the ’90s,” Mr. Cooper said, adding that criminals who prey on tourists and residents must be held accountable by law enforcement. “Congress needs to also adopt enhanced penalties for carjacking as well as the other property crimes that make doing business in D.C. a nightmare.”

A number of factors could be contributing to D.C.’s crime spikes, the Council on Criminal Justice’s chief policy counsel, Marc Levin, told the Sun, and there doesn’t seem to be one clear answer for the disparity between Washington and other cities. 

“D.C. is short 500 or more officers,” he said, adding that extended court closures and backlogs during the pandemic could be a factor as well. “There are quite a few carjackings and other crimes from youngsters who should be in high school or even lower than that, so, obviously, the devil makes work for idle hands. Having such high rates of chronic absenteeism and truancy is problematic.” 

Remote work culture can contribute to crime as well, Mr. Levin said. “That’s a problem in San Francisco, too. You’ve got places where you used to have a lot of street life, people that were working and commuting. Now there’s fewer people on the street except for people who might be up to no good,” he said. 

D.C.’s unique status, governed in part by locals and in part by federal lawmakers, also makes it difficult to respond to crises and surges in crime, he said. 

“There’s a lot of homicides that I’ve seen attributable to feuds between friends, family members,” Mr. Levin noted. “One of the things hopefully high schools can look at is conflict resolution skills, how to make sure that young people in particular have ways of de-escalating conflict.”

Ms. Bowser’s representatives were not reachable by the Sun for comment on the city’s plans to address the spiking homicide rates.