President Donald Trump’s deployment of federal forces to Washington, DC, drew charges of authoritarianism from critics and praise from supporters who see it as a necessary response to crime.

Residents of the nation's capital deserve both safety and local accountability, but any lasting benefit of this intervention depends on forging a sustainable federal-local partnership that addresses not just enforcement, but also crime prevention.

Despite the president’s power, federal control of the Metropolitan Police Department is set to expire Sept. 10 unless Congress acts ‒ an unlikely prospect given partisan divides. On Sept. 5, however, the DC National Guard extended its deployment through November.

Instead of National Guard policing DC, work with actual DC police

While Trump has relied heavily on National Guard units, they are not trained to investigate crime, and it’s unclear what they will do beyond the expiration on Wednesday. Saturating downtown with troops for an extended period risks making the city look occupied, undermining public confidence and tourism.

Actions by the FBI and other federal agencies have shown more promise. On Monday Sept. 8, Attorney General Pam Bondi said 214 illegal guns have been seized and 2,120 arrests have been made in Washington. Early data shows drops in several crime categories in the city, though the time frame for evaluation has been limited. In addition, the federal agents involved have been reassigned from critical duties like counterintelligence to which they must presumably return.

Sustaining gains will require shifting from a surge mentality to strategic collaboration with local law enforcement. For example, when DC police, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office joined forces to take down the Southeast “MLK Crew” in 2021, violent crime in the area dropped 63%.

Washington’s shrinking police force ‒ down from 4,000 officers in 2013 to about 3,100 today ‒ makes such operations more difficult. It has also slowed emergency response times and reduced investigative capacity.

Recruiting and retaining more officers is essential but also challenging, as bonuses alone have not reversed attrition.

To help, the Trump administration could back more effective recruiting strategies, high school and university partnerships modeled after ROTC and the rehiring of retired officers on a part-time basis.

Federal support could also ease housing costs through converting unused federal office space into affordable residences for first responders.

Beyond numbers, smarter deployment is crucial. Research indicates that DC police officers face uneven workloads, and shift overlaps waste patrol hours. Redeploying sworn officers from desk jobs to the field, expanding civilian investigators for minor cases and adopting online reporting could free officers to focus on violent crime. Other cities, Charlotte, North Carolina, among them, have shown that civilian units responding to routine car crashes can save thousands of patrol hours.

DC courts are another chokepoint, with 15 of 71 judgeships vacant and a backlog of 4,000 cases. Swift justice is vital to deterrence, and filling vacancies should be a federal priority.

Federal agencies could also help process digital and ballistic evidence faster through FBI forensics teams and mobile labs run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, reducing delays that let offenders remain at large.

Restore DOJ funding for crime prevention

As vital as it is to enforce the law, prevention is the off-ramp to the hamster wheel of crime. The Department of Justice recently cut grants for violence-prevention programs, including several in Washington, despite evidence that these initiatives work.

Programs like Heal DC, which lost $700,000 in federal funding, use mentoring and cognitive behavioral therapy to intervene with young men most at risk of violence.

Intervening with youths and young adults is especially urgent because more than half of Washington's violent crime arrests involve people 24 or younger. Thousands of disconnected youth remain outside school or work.

Federal resources could help them reenter education or job training and support year-round programs to augment the city’s summer youth employment initiative. Studies of certain job training and job corps programs have found meaningful reductions in participants’ arrest rates.

Finally, there is also an environmental component to prevention. Research suggests that safety can be enhanced by targeting the highest-crime areas with strategies such as upgrading street lighting and clearing out abandoned properties that can become magnets for gang activity, efforts that federal dollars could support.

While national crime, including in the nation's capital, has declined since its COVID-19 spike, Washington continues to struggle with high rates of homicide and carjacking. A temporary federal surge cannot solve these systemic problems. Instead, federal and city leaders must collaborate to enhance police capacity and efficiency, relieve judicial backlogs and invest in interventions to break the cycle of crime.

Washington's unique status as the federal district both justifies and demands ongoing federal involvement. With a balanced approach that strengthens policing, accelerates justice and funds prevention, a politically divisive surge can evolve into a lasting strategy for safer streets.

Marc A. Levin is chief policy counsel for the Council on Criminal Justice and can be reached at mlevin@counciloncj.org. Thaddeus L. Johnson, a former police officer, is a senior fellow at the council and a professor of criminology at Georgia State University. He can be reached at tjohnson@counciloncj.org.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: As Trump's DC takeover expires, here's how to continue to fight crime | Opinion

Reporting by Marc A. Levin and Thaddeus L. Johnson / USA TODAY

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