Washington, D.C., Feels Neither Safe Nor Clean Because It’s Not

The Federalist ^ | August 13, 2025 | Eddie Scarry

[E. Pluribus Unum]

When your daily life in a city is marked by a series of fearsome conversations, signs of squalor, and dangerous encounters, no rational person can call it safe.

The Trump administration is confronting another major problem, so naturally, Democrats and the media are busy at work claiming the problem doesn’t actually exist or otherwise can’t be solved by any obvious solution. This time, it’s crime and disorder in Washington, D.C., something anyone who has lived there for 24 hours is appalled by.

I lived there for 14 years. The decay and lawlessness are a primary reason I left.

It was never worse during my time in the city than the past five years, and it never fully recovered by my departure in September 2024. The “Black Lives Matter” movement inspired D.C.’s elected Democrats to essentially legalize all sorts of theft and reduce the penalties on other crimes like carjacking and armed robbery.

After all that time spent in D.C., living in a grand total of six different neighborhoods, it’s a miracle I was never the victim of any crime other than someone attempting to break into my home while I was out of town once. (I won’t count that my car was stolen from a Metro parking lot because that was technically in Suitland, Maryland, minutes outside the city.) But I witnessed and heard from friends and colleagues of their own assaults, robberies, and general signs of danger.

The office for one of my previous journalism jobs is located downtown, three blocks north of the White House. One afternoon, a colleague left to head home when it was still bright out, only to return minutes later because a homeless man had reached up her skirt from behind just as she had made it...

[NautiNurse]

Checked in with an old friend who owns a home in D.C., asked what she thinks about federalizing the D.C. police. She said that if the National Guard are near her location, she will bring them home baked treats. Said a young girl in the neighborhood was recently attacked by three boys, no accountability.

[Brian Griffin]

The Chinese used to fasten boards around the necks of miscreants. These boards made up a cangue. It served the same purpose as a pillory, but the miscreants could walk around and do work.

I have proposed a penalty time room system. Shoplifters might choose to sit 100 hours in a penalty time room in 40 days rather than facing prison. Penalty time rooms would allow criminals to retain/work a regular job. There would be no need to provide taxpayer-funded meals, medical care or public defenders to participants. Criminals would have to spend say 20 hours in the first seven whole days after arrest to enroll in the system.

Imprisonment is expensive. Democrat-run cities are overflowing with criminals.

[KC_Conspirator]

DC is a pvp zone

[PUGACHEV]

I am the third generation of my family born in D.C, and my children were born there too. Crime increased and the quality of life declined sharply after the riots in 1968. Simply, the city has never recovered since then. I lived on Capitol Hill in the '70s and early '80s, and there was at least a murder a day back then, and with three triple murders within a block of where I lived in less than six months. During my final year in that neighborhood, I was robbed at gunpoint, my car was stolen, and my townhome was broken into three times, twice while I was there.

The difference between then and now is that, while the overall crime rate may have gone down, crime has spread from the frontier neighborhoods, like Capitol Hill, to the Mall and tourist areas. Also, more neighborhood are becoming gentrified, and those moving in from safer places are experiencing all the joys of cultural diversity for the first time in their lives, often at the shank end of a knife.

In the end, it does not matter what the statistical crime rate is, nor whether it is going up or down, but as Judge Pirro put it, all violent crime, especially in our Nation's Capital is unacceptable.

[Jolla]

Do Dems ALWAYS have to take the 20 of an 80-20 poll?

[ByteMercenary]

“Imprisonment is expensive.” ... that is why I agree with something like your note regarding the Chinese for first time offenders of non-lethal crimes. One could implement various levels of public punishment up to and including flogging. After one or two public punishments the perp gets put into the prison system.

[cdcdawg]

I don’t think that they have to, but it sure does seem to work out that way a lot.

[Albion Wilde]

Crime increased and the quality of life declined sharply after the riots in 1968.

See this thread:
Trump warns homeless — Leave Washington DC immediately

...and particularly several of my posts, beginning with:
post 96

[The Great RJ]

During my last trip to DC some 30 years ago, I saw a DC fire truck with crumpled fenders and obviously unwashed. I know from experience that fire fighters take great pride in their fire trucks and immaculately maintain them. Seeing a fire truck in such a state in our nation’s capitol said a lot about how Washington DC was being run.