MPD’s reassignment of police districts and boundaries is well underway, with two community meetings already held and five more planned.
Police districts and police service areas are periodically reassigned to reflect the changing populations and service needs. MPD’s last district reassignment took place in 2004.
With increasing business and residential development, and the thriving tourist and entertainment areas throughout the city, workload in the police districts has shifted significantly since the last boundary realignment. In order to equalize workload, provide the highest level of police service to all areas of the city, and ensure the safety of law enforcement officers, in 2011 MPD will realign police boundaries. The plan is based on an evaluation of crime, calls for service, development and road construction plans, community concerns, and other factors.
What does all this mean? DC residents may soon find themselves assigned to a different police district than the one they were assigned to at the start of the year.
Police Districts and PSAs also are important when we look at— and especially when we compare— crime statistics. Every year reporters and residents want to know which districts and which PSAs saw the most robberies, sexual assaults and homicides. Those numbers help tell us about our neighborhoods… who is safe and who is in danger, when and where.
I’m spending some time this week going through the new files and the old data to take a look at what the realignment is likely to mean for our annual homicide count.
Here’s what I want to know:
- What are the new boundaries?
- What are the significant changes?
- How and where will realignment redistribute crime reports?
- If the redistricting were in place in 2010 and this year to date, what would the distribution of homicides by district and PSA look like?
I’ve started some reporting on this story, in the form of a Google spreadsheet of homicides by PSA in 2010 and 2011 to date, and I’m publishing in this post each of the realignment maps that MPD has published.
I hope you’ll take a look at the files and find your current PSA and your realigned PSA. If you can, take a look then at the homicide list by PSA and leave a comment with what you see changing. How many homicides from 2010/ 2011 would not be assigned to your area under realignment? How many additional would be?
Resources are below.
Find your Police Service Area (PSA) on this DC government site.
To see the original maps as published by MPD, select your District here.
Spreadsheet (Tip: click on the spreadsheet to open it in a full page)
