A new initiative reporting crime data from across the D.C. region in “near-real time” has won praise from local leaders and will provide new tools for policymakers, public safety agencies and the public.
“It’s the only one we’re aware of in the nation,” said Eli Russ, a senior public safety planner for the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG), who serves as project manager for the effort.
Officially launched before the group’s monthly meeting yesterday (Wednesday), the new COG Regional Crime Dashboard will draw from daily reports issued by public safety agencies in 24 jurisdictions spread across D.C., Virginia and Maryland.
That information will then be evaluated, codified and placed online in what will become a central clearinghouse of crime information.
While the reporting in certain cases could lag by days or weeks, that would still be a marked improvement from COG’s current practice of reporting regional crime statistics on a yearly basis.
“Year-old data … doesn’t really help inform the conversation in the moment,” said Charles Allen, a member of the D.C. City Council and one of two COG vice chairs.
Allen and other members on COG’s board of directors had praise for the initiative.
Having data available more quickly will help local leaders “develop shared strategies to fight crime and push back against the sometimes-incorrect perceptions of public safety,” COG board chair and Franconia District Supervisor Rodney Lusk said.
The database allows the public and law-enforcement personnel to select a regional overview or drill down by type of crime or jurisdiction.
It is, COG officials acknowledged, a work in progress.
“We’re at baby steps now. This thing is going to look a lot different a year from now than it looks right now,” said Russell Hamill III, police chief in the city of Laurel, Maryland, and chair of COG’s police chiefs committee.
“The people committing the crimes … aren’t stopping at jurisdictional lines,” said Hamill. The new dashboard would provide insights into both short-term crime spikes and long-term trends, he said.
Future goals for the initiative include incorporating data from regional and federal public-safety agencies. That will take time, COG executive director Clark Mercer said, but “we’ve moved in the right direction” by launching the initiative now, he said.
The dashboard focuses on crimes including homicide, robbery, rape, aggravated assault, motor-vehicle theft, burglary and larceny. Data is classified using the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System in most cases, although the Metropolitan Police Department in D.C. uses a different reporting method.
COG member jurisdictions include:
- In Virginia, the counties of Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William and the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax, Falls Church, Manassas and Manassas Park
- The District of Columbia
- In Maryland, the counties of Charles, Frederick, Montgomery and Prince George’s; the cities of Bowie, College Park, Frederick, Gaithersburg, Greenbelt, Hyattsville, Laurel, Rockville and Takoma Park; and the town of Bladensburg
Based on the most recent data, overall crime in the region is down 13% in the first four months of 2025 compared with the same time period in 2024, COG said, adding:
“During this time period, all categories of crimes against persons and property are showing declines regionwide, including robbery which decreased 32%, homicide which decreased 30%, rape which decreased 23% and aggravated assault which decreased by 21%.”
The Fairfax County Police Department has reported 16,998 crimes since June 2024, an average of 1,416.5 incidents per month, according to the dashboard.
