D.C.’s U.S. attorney says his office’s much criticized declined-to-prosecute rate on felonies in the city has gotten better but probably won’t improve anymore.
The U.S. attorney’s office for the District is on track to prosecute more than half of those arrested by police in Washington, D.C., in 2024, a turnabout from recent years when the office declined to prosecute more cases than it took on, officials said this week.said Thursday that the office declined to prosecute 45 percent of cases between October through December 2023, down from 47 percent from three months before.
Graves said D.C. police have reported a 36 percent drop in homicides, a 34 percent drop in assaults with a dangerous weapon and a 15 percent decline in overall violent crimes reported as of Thursday, compared with the same time the prior year.“If you had a 36 percent reduction in homicides year over year, at the end of the year, you would be hard-pressed to find in other jurisdictions that had that much of a drop in time. Anything close to that would be historical,” Graves said.
In a statement, Appiah cited passage of the Secure DC omnibus crime law and said that Mayor Muriel E. Bowser has worked to “rebalance the ecosystem” to help police and prosecutors do their jobs after “significant changes over the past 10 years” in the city’s criminal justice system.“We must continue sending the message that we will not tolerate violence and crime that disrupts our sense of safety and our ability to build thriving neighborhoods.
Graves said charging rates will probably flatten at this level because half of uncharged arrests arise from domestic violence calls. D.C. law requires police called to the scene to make an arrest, although many complainants choose not to cooperate further. Most of the rest are cases in which evidence is insufficient to secure a conviction or is inadmissible in court.
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