By Joshua Crawford,  Director of Criminal Justice Initiatives

What a difference a year makes.

Around this time last year, the Council of the District of Columbia overrode Mayor Muriel Bowser’s veto of a criminal code reform bill that, among other things, lowered penalties for carjacking, robbery, and burglary.

At the time of the bill’s passage, Washington was already in the midst of a dramatic increase in carjackings that began in June 2020. From January 2018 until May 2020, the city averaged 12.3 carjackings a month. That number increased to 39.7 carjackings a month between June 2020 and January 2023, when the council overrode the mayor’s veto.

And, for the record, carjackings in the district have not been restricted to “that” part of town. In August 2022, Washington Commanders running back Brian Robinson Jr. was shot in the leg during an attempted carjacking in broad daylight.

When she vetoed the criminal code reform bill, Bowser, a Democrat, said, “This bill does not make us safer. … Any time there’s a policy that reduces penalties, I think it sends the wrong message.” No one would doubt the mayor’s progressive credentials, but the D.C. Council had her sounding like former U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese, who served during the Reagan administration.

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Despite hopes for a decline in violence, 2023 will mark the end of a record-breaking four-year period of unprecedented violence in Louisville, prompting calls for sustained efforts to restore public safety and the city’s accustomed aura.

Our own Josh Crawford joins the conversation with real solutions for bringing about public safety improvement in 2024. 

Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg will hold a press conference Tuesday, introducing a real-time, comprehensive reporting tool that will expand information transparency on the city’s crime statistics.

A media release said the dashboard aims to create more collaborative work opportunities with and within the Louisville community.

“As a general rule, more data and more transparency is a good thing,” said Joshua Crawford, the Director of Criminal Justice at the Center of Opportunity.

Crawford sees a lot of benefits with this new dashboard. One of them being allowing people to see the reality of violence in the city.

“One of the things that people get wrong is that they think entire neighborhoods are riddled with violence,” Crawford said. “What a dashboard like this can demonstrate is that there are parts of the city people may feel uncomfortable being in, but there’s really not a reason to be uncomfortable because they’re not as violent as people perceive them to be.”

That’s not to say that there isn’t violence in the city. LMPD says there’s been 140 homicides so far this year.

Crawford said the violence happens at the micro location level.

“So at the one block street segment level, or at the outside of particular bar level, or the outside of particular abandoned buildings level,” he said.

Crawford says it’ll not only benefit people to know where there’s a history of violence, but also it might ease some concerns.

“To know that a particular area is not nearly as violent or criminogenic as you thought has benefit as well,” Crawford said.

With people being able to see all the information in real time, we asked Crawford if the areas with a higher level of violence will be ostracized.

“I think that’s only possible if you don’t do anything about it,” he said. “If it continues unabated then it may have that problem, but that’s a failure of government as much as it is this dashboard.”

Crawford said officials need to send services and resources to areas of violence to help the citizens in those places.