Heather Curtis
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON – Wtih four months left in 2015, D.C. has already seen more murders in 2015 than it did in the entire year in 2015, but the city’s not alone. Other cities around the country, including Chicago and New York, are experiencing the same troubling trend.
In August, the Major Cities Chiefs Association, a group made up of police chiefs from large cities around the nation, surveyed violent crime in their cities and found most were seeing increasing murder rates. Montgomery County Police Chief Tom Manger, who is also the association’s president, said unfortunately there was no aha moment at last month’s meeting of the minds.
“It’s not sort of a one size fits all problem. Many of us are seeing increases in our violent crime, but if you drill down, it’s different in each city,” Manger said. However, in each city, the people being arrested for the killings have violent criminal histories.
“This year 10 of the people involved in homicides have had prior homicide charges,” D.C. Police Chief Cathy said at a press conference August 13. She noted this has not been the case in the past.
Manger attributes this in part to the fact that many criminals take plea bargains where they plead guilty to a lesser offence to get a shorter sentence. Since the people aren’t sentenced based on the crimes they were originally charged with, their records don’t look at bad as they should. He would like to see sentencing reform that would require judges to look at a person’s entire history when sentencing him or her, including the original charges the person faced and whether a plea deal was taken.
“You need to determine who in our community is committing violent crimes, who in our community is a danger to our community because of their behavior and the crimes that they’re committing, and let’s focus on keeping those folks off the street,” Manger said.
He said there’s been an effort in recent years to sentence people to less time to alleviate overcrowding in jails and prisons. He said in the 80s people were given long sentences for drug crimes, but now the attitude has shifted toward ending overincarceration.
No matter what’s fueling the increase, Manger said police chiefs across the country are working to reverse the trend because nobody’s sure how long it will continue.
“I wish there was an easy answer, but there really isn’t. But that doesn’t mean that we’re throwing our hands up,” Manger said.
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