Which neighborhoods in D.C. saw the largest increase or decrease in homicides since 2024?
Executive summary
Available sources do not provide a simple, sourced list of which D.C. neighborhoods saw the largest increases or decreases in homicides since 2024; citywide reporting shows a sharp overall drop in homicides from 2023 to 2024 (274 to 187) and further declines through 2025 in many datasets, but neighborhood-level changes require ward- or tract-level counts that the MPD/Open Data set can provide though specific neighborhood comparisons are not published in these results [1] [2] [3].
1. What the headline numbers say about D.C. homicide trends
U.S. Department of Justice and related reporting show total homicides in the District fell markedly from 274 in 2023 to 187 in 2024, a decline the DOJ framed as part of a broader 30‑year low in violent crime; other summaries cite a 32% drop in homicides comparing 2024 with 2023 [4] [1]. Analysts and local trackers likewise report continued reductions into 2025: MPD’s public dashboard and independent analysts report fewer homicides year‑to‑date in 2025 than comparable periods in 2024 [2] [5].
2. Why neighborhood-level reporting is not summarized here
The public sources in your packet include MPD’s “District Crime Data at a Glance” and the city’s crime incidents open data portal, both of which provide the raw geography‑tagged incident data needed to calculate neighborhood changes (ward, ANC, SMD, neighborhood cluster, and census tract are included in the open dataset), but none of the supplied items published a simple ranked list of neighborhoods with the biggest homicide increases or decreases since 2024; deriving that ranking requires querying the open dataset or MPD maps directly [2] [3].
3. How to get the neighborhood comparisons yourself (what the sources enable)
The Open Data portal documents that crime incidents from 2020 onward include neighborhood cluster and tract assignments and can be filtered by year and offense type; using that dataset you can count homicides by neighborhood for 2023, 2024 and 2025 and compute percentage or absolute changes to identify neighborhoods with the largest increases or decreases [3]. MPD’s “Daily Crime”/year‑end pages also present dashboards and maps that update year‑to‑date figures — a practical next step is exporting MPD/Open Data homicide incidents by neighborhood and comparing totals across the years of interest [2].
4. What independent analysts and outlets report about geographic patterns
Available summaries point to concentrated declines in overall violence citywide and note persistent geographic disparities — several sources reference higher concentrations of violent crime historically in Wards 7 and 8 — but the specific neighborhood‑by‑neighborhood deltas since 2024 are not enumerated in the materials you provided [6] [7]. Independent analysts (e.g., Jeff Asher) and outlets like The Washington Post maintain homicide trackers and maps that can show where individual incidents occurred, which is useful for granular trend work though those articles here focus on citywide totals and year‑to‑date comparisons [5] [8].
5. Competing interpretations and political context
Federal and local officials emphasize a large, rapid decline in homicides and violent crime in 2024 and into 2025 — the DOJ press release frames 2024 as a 30‑year low and highlights a 32% homicides decline — while some national political actors have disputed or used earlier rates for political claims; PBS fact‑checking notes the DOJ’s 2024 total and cautions when older rates are quoted without context [4] [1]. Analysts caution that different time windows, population denominators, and definitions can change apparent trends; that’s why neighborhood‑level counts from the city’s open data are the reliable primary source for local comparisons [5] [3].
6. Limitations, next steps and recommended data sources
Limitations: the supplied materials do not list neighborhood‑level increases or decreases in homicides since 2024 — therefore any definitive neighborhood ranking is not supported by these sources (not found in current reporting). Recommended next steps: download and filter the “Crime Incidents in 2025” open dataset to tally homicides per neighborhood cluster/ward for 2023–2025 [3]; cross‑check with MPD’s Daily Crime dashboard and The Washington Post’s homicide map for incident-level verification [2] [8]. If you’d like, I can draft the exact query steps to extract neighborhood counts from the open dataset and help compute the largest increases and decreases using those official records.