District of Columbia
What District of Columbia's records show, how much of the state the FBI's data covers, and where the state publishes its own.
How District of Columbia handles a case
- Sets bail first
- Police releasing official at the station; magistrate judge or judge at presentment
- Who that is
- Judges and others
- Release on a schedule
- Jail or police can release on a schedule
- Time to see a judge
- No hour limit set
- Money bail
- Limited
- Risk assessment
- Pretrial Services Agency risk assessment instrument (statewide)
- Prosecutor
- United States attorney, statewide, appointed
- Public defense
- Mixed
- Jails run by
- State
- Who decides release first
At the station, a police releasing official can release some people on a citation or on collateral they post and may forfeit. Everyone else sees a Superior Court magistrate judge or judge at presentment, who sets release conditions.
D.C. Code 23-1110D.C. Code 23-1321D.C. Code 11-1732- Time to see a judge
Police must bring an arrested person before the court "without unnecessary delay." No law sets a number of hours, so the federal 48-hour rule from County of Riverside v. McLaughlin is the outer limit.
D.C. Code 23-562(c)(1)- Money bail
A judge may set money bail only to make sure a person comes to court, and never in an amount that keeps the person in jail. A person the court finds dangerous is held without bail after a hearing instead.
D.C. Code 23-1321(c)(3)
Crime and arrests
No figures yet
FBI data coverage
- Population covered
- 100%
- of District of Columbia's people lived under an agency that reported to the FBI in 2025.
- Agencies on NIBRS
- 66%
- 2 of 3 agencies send incident detail. The rest send summary counts or nothing.
1 agency not reporting through NIBRS
- District of Columbia Fire and Emergency Medical Services Arson Investigation UnitOther
Counties and agencies: no data yet
Source: FBI Crime Data Explorer, pulled 2026-09-26.
State crime reporting
- Program
- Metropolitan Police Department (MPD); DC has no separate state UCR program, MPD reports to the FBI
- Annual report
- MPD Annual Report (department annual report with crime figures; no separate Crime in DC book)Latest edition: 2025. Editions online 1961 to 2025, missing Decade pages for 1960s-1980s link only some years (1960s: 1961, 1962, 1967; 1970s: 1972, 1975, 1976; 1980s: 1981-1983, 1985-1987, 1989), No direct PDF links found for 1990-2009 decade pages or 2010-2025 pages (documents appear embedded); contents not confirmed.
- Online portal
- DC Crime CardsData 2009 to 2026.
- What changed
- Crime Cards and Open Data DC use DC Code classifications, not FBI UCR/NIBRS categories, so they do not match FBI totals.
Links and years checked 2026-09-26.
District of Columbia sources
- MPD Data and StatisticsState · DC
Metropolitan Police Department · Incidents, Arrests · html, dashboard · continuous
MPD crime data pages; DC Crime Cards (crimecards.dc.gov) dashboard is fed from the MPD crime report database.
- Open Data DC Crime IncidentsState · DC
District of Columbia Government (Open Data DC) · Incidents · csv, json, api · continuous
Geocoded MPD crime incident datasets published by year, plus a last-30-days file.
- DC Courts statistical summaryState · DC
District of Columbia Courts · Courts · pdf · annual
One jurisdiction: criminal filings, dispositions, pending; felony, misdemeanor, traffic. CY2010-2023. Pages 403 to scripts.
Plus 83 national sources, from the FBI, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Census Bureau, the courts, and others.