Jail population continued growing in 2024 even as DC crime fell, CCE analysis shows

The spike in violent crime in D.C. in 2023 garnered considerable attention from the media and policymakers. Statistics released last week show that crime in D.C. has fallen since the beginning of 2024. The same cannot be said of the population of the D.C. Department of Corrections (DOC) jail facilities, which has risen by roughly a third in a single year (FY2023 to FY 2024). CCE analysis, detailed below, shows that even with crime declining, the number ofpeople admitted to jail continued to rise.

While public opinions around crime have been well-publicized, District residents also feel strongly about shrinking the number of people behind bars: a poll released in September 2024 by HIT Strategies showed 75% of respondents feel it is important “to reduce the jail and prison population inthe District of Columbia.” Unfortunately, the publicly available data about the jail population that would allow for a sophisticated analysis of the jail population, such as charge types, case status, and lengths-of-stay, is limited. To address these gaps, District leaders should turn their attention to understanding the specific causes of the steep and sustained increase in the jail’s population and identifying ways to bring it back down in 2025.

As of Friday, December 13, 2024, there were 1,977 people were in DOC custody. This is 667 more people than three years ago, when in December 2021 there were 1,310 people in custody. To provide more context around jail population growth, CCE analyzed public data sources from DOC and the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) to look at trends since the beginning of 2023 through the end of fiscal year 2024 (September 30, 2024), the last date of available comprehensive jail data); these showed that from January 2023 through September 2024 crime rose and fell, while the jail population steadily increased.

Some might suggest that crime was down because the jail population was higher– that is, those in jail would have been out committing crimes if they were not incarcerated. However, DOC data shows that jail intakes continued to riseduring this period of falling crime. Given that more serious offenses are more likely to result in someone being held in jail, CCE looked at both total and violent crime.

In terms of percentage changes, CCE’s analysis of data from MPD’s dashboard and DOC’s quarterly report showed that while total crime fell 9% and violent crimefell 21% from FY2023 to FY2024, jail intakes and average daily population both rose by about a third. Individual or detailed charge data for admissions is not available in public DOC reports, so CCE analyzed data from the D.C. Criminal Justice Coordinating Council (CJCC), via the Justice Statistical Analysis Tool (JSAT). In calendar year 2023, people charged with violent offenses made up 20% of all DOC admissions. From January 1 – September 30, 2024, the share of admissions of people charged with violent offenses dropped, to 18%.

As noted in our recent report, Is D.C. More Secure? A Criminal Legal System Overview, concerns about spikes in some violent crimes led to spring 2024 legislation that included provisions related to prosecution and sentencing. These included the narrowing of who is eligible for pretrial release, broadening ofdefinitions of some offenses, and expansion of law enforcement surveillance through the creation of temporary drug free zones.

During this same period of time, the D.C. Superior Court has indicated that judicial vacancies are causing criminal cases to movemore slowly through the system; as a result, some people may be detained in jail for longer periods, adding to the jail population. DOC reports show that the average length of stay of those released in FY2023 and FY2024 increased from 96.45 days to 111.6 days for males and from 45.5 days to 53.3 days for females. With the currently available public data, CCE cannot conduct a detailed analysis of what isdriving the jail population.

In Is D.C. More Secure? we note that “[t]here is considerable researchshowing that pretrial detention can worsen public safety by increasing the likelihood of future criminal justice involvement; evidence also shows that those detained experience a host of negative consequences, including greater likelihood of being convicted and sentenced, lost wages and jobs, and destabilization of families.”

Understanding why the jail population has dramatically increased and its consequences, as well as what steps can be taken to safely reduce the jail population, should be a focus of District policymakers in the upcoming year.