Fact Check: Trump’s claim that D.C. has “one of the highest crime rates in the world”

The Big Picture

In a post on Truth Social on August 13, 2025, President Donald Trump said Washington, D.C., has “one of the highest rates of crime in the world,” with a homicide rate higher than Mexico City, Bogotá, Islamabad, and Addis Ababa — “almost ten times higher than Fallujah.” He also argued that the city’s murder rate has doubled over a decade and that official figures are manipulated and vastly undercount actual crime.

What’s New

Recent official figures show a sharp year-over-year improvement in 2024, including a large drop in violent crime and a sizable decline in homicides, according to the city’s year-end data release from the Metropolitan Police Department. MPD – District Crime Data at a Glance (2024)

What They’re Saying

Context

Is D.C. among the world’s most violent cities? No. The best cross-national yardstick is homicide per 100,000 residents. D.C.’s rate fell to the high-20s in 2024 after a spike in 2023. Lists of the world’s most homicidal cities show dozens of places above D.C. in recent years, concentrated in parts of Latin America. According to independent researchers, those rankings regularly feature cities with rates of 40–80+ per 100,000, far above Washington’s 2024 level.

Named comparisons. D.C.’s 2023 rate did exceed Mexico City and Bogotá, which posted lower city-level rates that year. But reliable, current city-level homicide figures for Islamabad and Addis Ababa are not consistently published, and the specific comparison to Fallujah is not supported by credible, up-to-date city data. In short: some comparisons are fair in direction, but the sweeping “worst in the world” framing isn’t.

Trend and scale. Homicides did roughly double versus the city’s early-2010s lows, then dropped in 2024. Meanwhile, overall violent crime fell markedly in 2024 from 2023, reaching levels prosecutors described as a multi-decade low. Claims that “no one is arrested for shoplifting” or that “real” crime totals are five to ten times higher are assertions without evidence; homicides, in particular, are rarely unrecorded, and MPD continues to report retail-theft arrests.

Vehicle theft. One point that does check out: D.C. had the highest vehicle-theft rate in the U.S. in 2023 — more than triple the national average — before early indications of improvement in 2024.

What’s Next

Expect continued argument over how to compare Washington with much larger foreign capitals and over which timeframes to use. Monthly updates from MPD and periodic research summaries will clarify whether the 2024 decline is holding in 2025.

The Bottom Line

Rating: False. D.C. faces serious public-safety challenges and posted a high homicide rate by U.S. standards in 2023–2024. But the claim that it ranks among “the highest in the world,” and that official totals miss the true scale by multiples, is not supported by credible data. Selected comparisons (e.g., to Mexico City and Bogotá) point the right direction for 2023, yet they do not make D.C. a global outlier — and the 2024 trend moved sharply downward.

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Source and Reference

• President Trump’s Truth Social post
• Metropolitan Police Department — District Crime Data at a Glance (2024 year-end)
• U.S. Attorney’s Office (D.C.) — Violent crime down 35% in 2024 (Jan. 3, 2025)
• Igarapé Institute — World’s most homicidal cities (2023)
• PolitiFact — How does D.C.’s homicide rate stack up worldwide?
• Rochester Institute of Technology — 2024 Homicide Statistics for 24 U.S. Cities (working paper)
• National Insurance Crime Bureau — Vehicle thefts surged in 2023 (D.C. highest rate)
• PBS NewsHour — Fact-checking Trump’s D.C. homicide claims