President Donald Trump described Washington D.C. as a city riddled with “crime, bloodshed, bedlam, squalor and worse,” setting the scene to place the nation’s capital under federal control.
Trump is throwing the full weight of his administration behind the deployment of around 800 National Guard troops to crack down on “out of control” crime.
But the president’s depiction of Washington, D.C. as a violent, crime-ridden cesspit is nothing new and harks back to the 1800s, when it was described as a “contemptible hamlet” by an architect who had lofty plans for the city before the Civil War.
Later, in 1968, Richard Nixon said that D.C. was “fast becoming the crime capital of the world,” and promised to turn it into “an example of respect for law and freedom from fear.”
And in the late 1980s and 1990s, D.C. claimed the title of “murder capital” of the U.S. as homicide rates hit record rates during a drug crisis. At the same time, the city was presided over by a mayor who was arrested for smoking crack cocaine.
A similar rhetoric is now being pushed by Trump despite the city’s declining crime rate. But crime researchers say D.C. still has a serious problem.
“Although crime is declining, Washington is still far more dangerous than the capital of the United States should be,” Charles Fain Lehman, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, wrote in the Atlantic.
Here,The Independent looks back at a city and its crime.
In 1791, French-American architect Pierre L’Enfant was appointed by George Washington to design the place that would later become Washington, D.C. L’Enfant had a grand vision for the Federal City, consisting of picturesque gardens, grand avenues and impressive mansions.
By the early 1800s, he was disappointed by the reality and complained the city was a “contemptible hamlet,” the historian and author J.D. Dickey wrote in his 2014 book Empire of Mud: The Secret History of Washington, D.C.
“Where he saw grand avenues for strolling, there were dirty lanes and broken pavements,” Dickey wrote. “Where he saw smart theaters, churches, banks, and salons, there were squalid alleys, gambling halls, and bordellos catering to criminals and johns.”
The culture of violence seen in recent decades has evolved out of the 19th century, the author said.
“Washington D.C. was an incredibly violent place, especially during its pre-Civil War and Civil War era, and up through the Gilded Age as well,” Dickey said on The Takeaway podcast. “One reason it was so incredibly violent was because of the lack of police presence. You had a handful of constables who were expected to patrol beats that were miles long. Crime routinely broke out, mob violence, and all other aspects of bad and criminal behavior, as well as socially-accepted violence.”
At the same time, the slave trade was booming in the capital. “The legacy of slavery is a deep and disturbing one, and it’s one that’s really hard to get away from when you plunge into the history of the city,” Dickey added.
