In mid-March, nearly 100 rounds were fired in a matter of seconds in a Hill East neighborhood. No one was injured, but bullets pierced a child’s bunk bed, struck the windows of a nearby school, and rattled the entire community.

What followed was notable not just for its speed but also its breadth: community safety walks brought residents and officials together to survey the space and identify vulnerabilities; a coordinated multiagency response spanned law enforcement, environmental improvements, and building code enforcement; and both immediate crisis response and longer-term prevention measures were put in motion. Community and government partners, all at the table together.

Research shows this type of coordinated interagency response, or ecosystem approach, is one of the most effective ways to improve public safety. DC’s response to this event demonstrated exactly how this approach looks in practice. It also demonstrated that the District has the capacity to work this way. The question is whether DC can operationalize that approach proactively—before a crisis forces it—and at the scale required to sustain and continue reducing violence citywide.

Like many communities around the country, the District has made real progress on public safety in recent years, including building more of this connective tissue that’s essential for coordinated response. Yet important changes are underway, just as residents and federal authorities expect tangible and continuous improvement. To name a few—many of the federal investments that helped drive those declines in violence are now being withdrawn or winding down. More than 2,500 National Guard troops remain stationed throughout the city. The local economic outlook is shifting. Sustaining progress under evolving conditions will require the District to build its public safety ecosystem intentionally, with political commitment and operational discipline to optimize resources in a more fiscally constrained environment.

Here are three things the incoming mayor and council need to know to accomplish that goal:

1. Reducing gun violence requires strong coordination and consistent implementation.

The District already has an evidence-based roadmap for more proactive, large-scale, and sustainable responses to gun violence: the 2022 Gun Violence Reduction Strategic Plan. The plan is based on a gun violence problem analysis report (PDF) completed in 2021, which finds that roughly 200 people account for 60 to 70 percent of gun violence episodes in the city, suggesting they should be the main target for coordinated intervention.

The problem is not the plan—it’s the execution. The Justice Policy Institute documented (PDF) stalled implementation, limited expansion of violence interruption, a lack of publicly available outcomes data, and the absence of a senior official accountable for execution. The plan diagnoses the problem: DC “has the needed talent, ability, and resources to drastically reduce gun violence in the city. However, it is lacking the political commitment, coordination, and a coherent strategy” to do so.

Research and DC’s own implementation record point to a set of structural necessities: an updated whole-of-government plan informed by the latest risk analyses; consistent and clear mayoral leadership; a senior official with clear authority and accountability for cross-agency execution; transparent, public outcome data; a violence interrupter workforce scaled to the need; and a Criminal Justice Coordinating Council (CJCC) empowered to coordinate action, not merely share data.

2. Committed leadership is vital to successful GVI implementation.

In January 2022, Baltimore launched its Group Violence Reduction Strategy (GVRS)—a model developed with support from the University of Pennsylvania’s Crime and Justice Policy Lab. GVRS identifies the people at highest risk of gun violence, combines clear accountability with targeted services, and focuses enforcement narrowly on those who continue to drive violence.

Baltimore had tried versions of this approach twice before; both times it collapsed amid “fractured leadership and poor coordination.” This time, under the direction of Mayor Brandon Scott, city leaders prioritized violence reduction, building and sustaining all components together. An independent evaluation found substantial reductions in shootings and homicides, without displacement of violence. By the end of 2025, Baltimore recorded its lowest homicide count in 50 years.

The District already has most of the components Baltimore had to construct from scratch: the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, the Office of Gun Violence Prevention, hospital-based violence intervention, Cure the Streets, the Credible Messenger Initiative, and People of Promise. It also has a CJCC capable of aligning federal and local partners. What’s been missing is a bold executive champion to facilitate the necessary governance and management capacity (PDF) to coordinate and work toward a shared goal.

3. Juvenile justice policy should invest in what works, not what’s flashy.

When violence involving young people makes headlines, juvenile curfews are a perennial response—easy to announce, intuitively appealing. The District reported designating 14 juvenile curfew zones in the first months of this year, resulting in seven total curfew violations across all of them. That ratio should prompt reflection about whether the tool is addressing the problem.

Research consistently finds that juvenile curfews have little to no meaningful effect on youth crime and victimization and can cause lasting harm through disparate enforcement and increased system contact. A study conducted on previous juvenile curfews in the District actually found the policy to increase gun violence, with researchers hypothesizing the curfew removed the deterrent effect of bystanders and witnesses. Additionally, youth curfew policies have logistical limitations that don’t account for young people experiencing homelessness and overlook their limited use of forms of identification with a home address.

Alternately, a comprehensive, collaborative approach that supports young people and families, strengthens community connections, and expands access to positive youth development opportunities could reduce crime and improve long-term outcomes. The District already has programs capable of advancing this approach: credible messenger mentoring, school-embedded leadership and support models, transitional employment pathways, and summer youth employment. Programs that deliver cognitive behavioral therapy have also been consistently proven to be effective, and careful expansion should be a priority.

In addition, schools, libraries, the Department of Parks and Recreation, EventsDC, and Business Improvement Districts could collaborate to invest in consistent, age-appropriate activities and events that promote positive youth development, provide needed services to youth and families, and provide young people with opportunities to socialize safely during high-risk hours. Similar programs have reduced crime in Los Angeles and Philadelphia. The recent curfew policy passed by the DC Council requires the city to host an event for young people any time the police designate a curfew zone. This is a step in the right direction, and rigorous evaluation of the efficacy of this combined approach is necessary to ensure optimal allocation of limited public safety resources. 

Finally, the mayor and council can ensure that when enforcement is needed, the agencies responsible (DC Metropolitan Police Department and the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services) engage in ways that support the broader strategy. Enforcement activities must be narrowly targeted, fairly implemented, and aligned with evidence-based practices emphasizing diversion where appropriate and relationship repair.

A path forward

Violence reduction is not a one-off program. It is a persistent challenge that requires specific infrastructure and active, sustained management. In a constrained budget environment, that kind of investment in coordination and accountability can seem like a luxury—yet gun violence costs the District $2 billion annually. Getting this right is not a drain on the city’s fiscal health. It is essential to it.

Luckily, the District is not starting from scratch. It has programs, infrastructure, and a track record of progress. Sustaining the District’s progress in a more constrained fiscal environment will require the incoming mayor and council to build the ecosystem intentionally. The challenge is no longer whether effective solutions exist. It is whether the District’s leadership will commit to the governance, management, and follow-through required to deliver them—consistently, at scale, and over time—to build safer communities.