Death on the rise
First, the bad news: the number of murders in the DC area rose in 2005. But for residents of the District itself, there is a silver lining: the increase can be traced to the surrounding suburbs. There were 466 homicides in the area, according to the Washington Post, up from 420 in 2004; however, the number of murders in the city fell from 198 to 194, marking the first time since the mid-1980s that the city has seen fewer than 200 killings for two consecutive years.
Washington, DC, was known as the ??murder capital? of America in the late 1980s and 1990s, because of rates that sometimes topped 400, peaking at 482 in 1991. This sparked an exodus from the city to the suburbs, as residents tried to escape the crime. But now crime is rising in these peripheral districts, most notably in Prince George??s County, Maryland, where murders rose from 148 in 2004 to 173. The city itself still has a relatively high murder rate??35 per 100,000 residents. Most American cities of a similar size have much lower rates: in 2002 Seattle's was 4.5 per 100,000 residents and Denver's was 8.8 (DC's was 45.9).
