‘Keep Violent People in Jail’ to Reduce Growing Crime Rate: DC Police Chief

Police Chief Robert Contee speaks to reporters, with Mayor Muriel Bowser, after a shooting in Washington, on July 22, 2021. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Keeping criminals in jail and not letting them loose among the general populace is a way to reverse the increasing homicide rate in Washington, according to Robert Contee, chief of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).

“The things that we have been doing is locking up bad guys, taking guns off the street. What we got to do if we really want to see homicides go down is keep bad guys with guns in jail. Because when they [are] in jail, they can’t be in community shooting people … That’s the thing that we need to do different—we need to keep violent people in jail,” Contee said while speaking along with Mayor Muriel Bowser at a press conference on March 6.

The police chief was responding to a question from a reporter who asked about homicide rates in the district increasing 30 percent so far this year, and how the department planned to tackle the trend. Contee admitted that homicide rates saw a “slight uptick” at the beginning of the year.

According to data from the MPD, there have been 40 homicides in the region as of March 8 compared to just 30 during the same period last year. For the entirety of 2022, there were 203 homicides—a roughly 10 percent reduction from the 226 homicides in 2021.

“Right now, the average homicide suspect has been arrested 11 times prior to them committing a homicide. That is a problem … The average homicide victim also has been arrested 10 or 11 times prior to them becoming a homicide victim. That is a problem,” Contee said.

However, these are problems that are not going to get fixed just by the police department making arrests, which is where the role of community members and other partners come in, the police chief added.

Youth And Crime

During an event in January, Contee raised concerns about the rising crime rate among youngsters.

“Our babies are starting to show up different … Their first introduction into the criminal justice system is for a violent crime where they’re using a firearm. It’s not showing up because they stole a bag of chips or because they broke into or something. It’s because they put a gun in somebody’s face or they used that gun,” he said.

According to Contee, ten young people were arrested for homicide in the past year and nine in the year before. He criticized a violent culture among the youth.

“There’s something that is troubling our communities, this culture of violence that is showing up where violence is the only thing that’s respected within the circles of our young people.

“It’s showing up in schools. Ask the principals, they'll tell you. It’s showing up in schools and they’re scared. Kids are getting public safety transfers from this school to that school, only to run into similar issues. They’re scared. Parents are scared.”

READ MORE

• ‘Modest’ Link Between Violent Video Games, Physical Aggression Confirmed by Study
• How Violent Media Changes the Brain

Reducing Crime Sentences

Contee’s March 6 comments come as Democratic D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson withdrew a controversial bill aimed to reduce sentences for criminals—the opposite of what the police chief said in needed to reduce the killings.

Mendelson’s Revised Criminal Code Act (RCCA) sought to rewrite the district’s criminal code so that maximum penalties for crimes like robberies, carjackings, burglaries, and so on would be reduced. The measure also scrapped several mandatory minimum sentences.

The proposal was passed by the D.C. Council. However, it was met with strong opposition from Republicans and some Democrats who are also concerned about how decreased criminal penalties are affecting crime rates. It was vetoed by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat.

The House of Representatives introduced a measure to overturn the proposal while the Senate was set to vote and block it.

Mendelson told reporters that the bill was withdrawn so that the Council could rework it before submitting it again.

“The DC Council’s desperate, made-up maneuver not only has no basis in the DC Home Rule Act, but underscores the completely unserious way the Council has legislated. No matter how hard they try, the Council cannot avoid accountability for passing this dangerous soft-on-crime bill,” Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) said in a March 6 tweet.