Series · 5 reports
Policing in DC
Five reports test how the Metropolitan Police Department's stops, searches, arrests, tickets and crime records land across Washington, using the department's own public data.
These reports first appeared on Justice Lens, a Specta site, in 2026. Each uses MPD's public records from DC Open Data and states its method beside the result. Results that favor the department are reported as prominently as those that don't.
Records count stops, searches and arrests, not people: someone stopped twice counts twice. Race is as recorded by officers. Comparisons with residents can't account for people who work in or visit a district. The data shows who was stopped, searched or arrested, and does not say why.
The reports
Washington, DC · 2019 to 2025 · Oct 8, 2026
In every DC police district, the Black share of people stopped is larger than the Black share of residents: 1.82 times citywide, and 6.7 times in the 2nd District, where 8% of residents are Black. Arrests show the same pattern.
Washington, DC · 2019 to 2025 · Oct 8, 2026
DC police pat down Black people they stop at 1.7 to 4.5 times the rate of others they stop, depending on the district. Searches of both groups find something at about the same rate, 13.9% and 12.5%.
Washington, DC · 2013 to 2025 · Oct 8, 2026
In DC's majority-Black police districts, frisks per reported crime run 2.73 times the rest of the city, or 1.41 times counting violent crime only. For stops and arrests, the answer depends on which crimes are counted.
Washington, DC · 2019 to 2025 · Oct 8, 2026
At the same time of day, stops made in daylight, when officers can more easily see race, are no more likely to be of Black people than stops after dark.
Washington, DC · 2008 to 2026 · Oct 8, 2026
Investigations document MPD officials reclassifying crimes in 2023 to 2025. Tests of DC's published crime totals find no trace, because the documented scale is below what the public data can detect.