Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Every year, about 500 identifiable people in D.C. drive as much as 70% of the city’s gun violence, according to a new report commissioned by the city.
The study was authored by the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, which has been working with the District to come up with a strategic plan for reducing gun violence. It found that a relatively small group of people — likely as little as 200 people at any one point in time — are driving a majority of homicides and shootings in the city. And the study echoes an argument that community leaders in the neighborhoods most affected by violence have long put forward: If the government and community groups can come together to reach those high-risk people, invest in them, and make intensive intervention efforts, the city can reduce homicides and help save lives.
“In Washington, D.C., most gun violence is very tightly concentrated on a small number of very high risk young Black male adults that have a shared set of common risk factors,” says David Muhammad, the executive director of the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform. “This very small number of high risk individuals are identifiable. Their violence is predictable and therefore it is preventable.”
Using interviews and data from the Metropolitan Police Department and other law enforcement and supervision agencies, researchers examined 341 homicides in 2019 and 2020, as well as nonfatal shootings that injured people in 2020. The study excluded police shootings, accidental self-inflictions, and “cases of justified self-defense.” Its goal was to establish a “common understanding of the local violence problem,” with the idea that once people can agree on why the shootings and killings are happening, leaders can tailor their solutions to the problem.
According to the study, there is significant overlap between victims of homicides and the suspects who commit them, in terms of life circumstances and risk factors. Many are involved in groups, which the study defined as a neighborhood crew, clique, or gang with varying levels of organization. Many have history with the criminal justice system, and a significant number have previously been the victim of a shooting or connected in some way to a recent shooting.
The study found that the vast majority – 85% – of homicides in 2019 and 2020 involved guns. And in at least 46% of the cases, the shooting had some connection to a group, whether through the victim, the suspect, or both. (The study noted that in another 26% of the homicides, group affiliation was unknown, meaning the number of group-connected shootings could be higher.)
More than 90% of homicide victims and homicide suspects in 2019 and 2020 were male, and about 96% were Black. Nearly half were formerly incarcerated, and about 86% of them were known to the criminal justice system in some way. And, the study found, victims in homicides and suspects in these cases were “remarkably similar” when it came to prior arrests. Most had been arrested for property crimes, drug crimes, and unarmed violent offenses prior to the shooting or homicide, and had on average been arrested approximately 11 times.
And a significant percentage of homicide victims and suspects had previously been victims of a violent incident. About 13% had previously been shot or stabbed, according to MPD police reports — but, the researchers add, that percentage is likely significantly higher, because that number does not include violent incidents that happened in another jurisdiction, or violent incidents that were not reported to the police.
The average age of homicide victims in 2019 and 2020 was 31, and the average age of a homicide suspect in those years was 27. Muhammad said this finding was unsurprising to him — but it might be surprising to some D.C. residents.
“I do think it’ll be quite surprising for the average D.C. resident to understand that the vast majority of shootings and homicides in the District are committed by adults, that there’s actually few shootings and homicides committed by juveniles,” said Muhammad, who has worked on juvenile justice issues, including as a top official at D.C.’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services.
By far, the most frequent known cause of homicides in recent years were personal disputes. According to the study, more than 20% of homicides in 2019 and 2020 came about because of a personal dispute — some kind of interpersonal conflict.
“What most of this is is a dispute of about two guys fighting over a young woman,” says Muhammad. “That is, I would say, the leading cause of violence in the country, to be honest.”
But one piece that’s important to understand, Muhammad says, is that nearly half of those personal disputes involved people who were connected to a group. It’s not “what most people conjure gang-on-gang warfare,” he says. “It might be, ‘We’re fighting over a young woman. You’re now dating my ex-girlfriend and I’m upset about it. That’s what we’re fighting over, but a risk factor — as well as something that exacerbates the conflict — is that we’re also both in crews.’”
The other leading circumstances in D.C. homicides were group-related conflicts, “instant disputes” or arguments that quickly escalate into violence, and drug-related disputes.
A chart of the circumstances of homicides in D.C. identified by researchers, using case summaries and detective interviews. NICJR
The insights from the study make a case for how to reduce gun violence: Identify the people most at risk, and focus resources and attention on them.
Muhammad adds that age is worth noting — because it has implications for how D.C. can tackle the gun violence problem happening in this current moment. While many point to programs for youth as a solution to violence, Muhammad says the city also needs to be extremely focused on reaching older young adults.
“It’s extremely difficult engaging a 25-year-old who has seven previous adult arrests, who is an avowed member of his neighborhood clique, who’s not currently interested in services, but that is the individual we have to serve. That’s the individual we have to pour resources into,” he says.
And pouring resources into the highest-risk people will take more coordination among the District’s various violence prevention agencies and programs, says Muhammad, who was part of a team that at one point reduced homicides in Oakland by half. He says successful violence prevention involves regular meetings where leaders of various agencies and programs get specific about certain individuals they’re worried about — and then assign that person a life coach who can check in with them every single day and connect them with the resources and interventions they need.
This is what violence interrupters and credible messengers are already doing with individuals in some neighborhoods, but Muhammad says a better coordinated and better focused city-wide strategy could make that work even more effective.
“When you do that with enough of the people who rise that level of highest risk, which we’re saying in the course of a year, is about 500 people in D.C. – in one sense, that’s a large number in terms of services. In another sense, it’s extremely small,” says Muhammad. “And so to say we’re going to focus intensely on 500 of them is very doable, and if we did it right, could really drive down shootings and homicides.”
The findings of the study also make the case, perhaps, for an approach to gun violence prevention that takes gender into account. While domestic violence — the type of violence most often viewed through a gendered lens — comprises a relatively small portion of homicides, Muhammad said that in Oakland his team found that there was overlap between people at high-risk for being involved in gun violence and people who had been involved in some sort of domestic violence incident — even if the incident did not involve physical violence. Women are also significantly affected by the trauma of gun violence. And, as researchers found in D.C., the conflicts that lead to murders can often involve them.
“The vast, vast, vast, vast majority of shooting and homicide victims and suspects are males, and that leads many people, sometimes myself, to say you should focus intervention efforts on males,” says Muhammad. “But even if you think this woman’s not going to be the shooter, there’s many women at the center of shooting who could use intervention efforts.”
https://dcist.com/story/22/02/18/majority-of-dc-homicides-driven-by-small-group/