Poor DC has all the problems of any major city, with two distinct disadvantages. One, it has to go through Congress (who in the past - regardless of of administration or congressional majority) who has always thought of the DC problems as about 126 in it's list of top ten things to do. It also only has one police department, where most cities have three (muni police, sheriffs department, state police) And second it's pretty much deprived of the greatest source of money most cities have, the money that funds stuff like police departments. Yet, despite that, it's not near as dangerous as other cities anymore.*
Top 10 Most Dangerous Cities in United States in 2010 for total violent crime are:
St. Louis, Missouri
Camden, New Jersey
Detroit, Michigan
Flint, Michigan
Oakland, California
Richmond, California
Cleveland, Ohio
Compton, California
Gary, Indiana
Birmingham, Alabama
http://www.therealestatebloggers.com/top-10-real-estate-lists/top-10-most-dangerous-cities-in-united-states-in-2010/But drop out all violent crime and just leave murder - as you said it's the
Murder capital. Well is it? Nah.
For 2011, It's Philly, on a per capita basis. (324 in '11 is a rate of 20.7 per 100,000. The next closest is Chicago, at 15.7) DC ain't even on the top 10 list. Matter of fact:
The District of Columbia is on pace to record the fewest number of homicides in 50 years, with 108 murders, so far this year (Late December 2011). DC officials credit the decline to the quick turnaround time in closing cases. Matter of fact murder rates in general are down across the board, owing mostly to an aging population.
http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2011/12/30/philadelphia-closes-2011-with-highest-per-capita-murder-rate-in-u-s/I can only assume you used that whole murder capital deal without actually looking at the real numbers (or pulling old numbers, I had to go back to 2008 for a high DC rate - it's been going down since then, as noted above), but hey, why let facts stand in the way of a good argument? And, BTW, murder rate stats are pretty good, they tend not to be downgraded in charging/reporting like rape often is.
* - And at that most urban regions are safer than many rural areas, particularly in the south, Mississippi and Alabama have rates that are higher than NYC for example - though NYC is very safe on a per capita basis. Perhaps one of the safest places in the US.
