In a bold move this August, President Trump declared that the crime rates in the nation’s capital were spiraling out of control. He warned that the escalating chaos posed a threat to public servants, local residents, tourists, and the effective operation of the federal government. To tackle what he described as a state of “bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor,” Trump signed an executive order, invoking the Home Rule Act. This order allowed federal control of the city’s Metropolitan Police Department and deployed National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., aiming to restore order.

Fast forward to October, Trump confidently proclaimed that the city had become significantly safer. According to White House officials, crime statistics corroborated this claim, showing a substantial decline. Compared to the previous year, overall crime had decreased by 17 percent, homicides were halved, assaults with deadly weapons dropped by 16 percent, and robberies saw a 22 percent decline.

Troops from five states—Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, West Virginia, and Ohio—who were sent to assist in D.C., have announced plans for withdrawal this fall. The remaining states are also preparing to bring their troops home soon. Meanwhile, the deployment orders for over 900 members of the D.C. National Guard have been extended through December.

The question remains: Was the operation truly effective?

Jeff Asher, a crime analyst and co-founder of AH Datalytics, suggests caution in drawing conclusions. He emphasizes the need for extensive data over a prolonged period to accurately assess the situation. “If crime was already on the decline before the intervention and continued to fall, what does that indicate?” Asher questions, urging a deeper analysis of the factors at play.

Here’s a review of information the White House didn’t cite. Violent crime in Washington reached a 30-year low in 2024. This downward trend continued in the first half of 2024, with an additional decline of 26 percent in violent crime and 13 percent in homicides year over year.

In the four weeks before the executive order took effect, violent crimes committed with a firearm dropped from 97 to 65. In early August, residents reported about seven violent crimes to the police per day; the average dropped to 5 or 6 in mid-August, but was back up to seven by the end of September.

Although National Guard troops had the authority to make arrests, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth indicated, “they’re not going to be involved in law enforcement.” Kingsley Wilson, the Pentagon press secretary, confirmed that they “will not be arresting people.”

Of the 550 people arrested in the first 13 days of the operation, 527 were apprehended by officers of the Metropolitan Police Department; 225 of the individuals in custody were alleged to be undocumented immigrants and three were alleged gang members.

One quarter of the 550 offenses were not listed as crimes but as “other.” As Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White (D) told reporters, “Most of it was no paper, a lot of frivolous charges.”

The activities of National Guard troops were often unrelated to crime. In addition to providing administrative and logistical support for the MPD, they patrolled parks, the National Mall, Metro stations and several neighborhoods — at times armed, sometimes reassuring and sometimes unnerving or angering residents. The troops removed graffiti, helped run soup kitchens, disposed of “1,015 bags of trash, spread 744 cubic yards of mulch, removed five truckloads of plant waste, cleared 6.7 miles of roadway, painted 270 feet of fencing.” 

No wonder Mayor Muriel Bowser (D), with whom Trump did not consult before issuing his executive order, repeatedly pointed out that the National Guard deployment is not an efficient use of resources.

As Virginia Burger, a senior defense policy analysis at the Project on Government Oversight, emphasized, an operation of this scale “is not cheap.” According to an internal budget document obtained by USA Today, the cost of the National Guard personnel assigned to the president’s initiative (968 from D.C. and 1,300 out-of-state) is about $1.8 million per day. Expenses include pay, transportation, hotel rooms, food, and laundry service.

The drain on annual government appropriations for the National Guard, whose assignments, until now, came with the support of local officials, usually involve recovery from natural disasters and help quelling riots, Maj. Gen. Greg Porter indicated. Trump’s deployment will make it difficult to keep the troops “trained, equipped, and ready to respond when our nation calls.”

A civilian critic has calculated that the daily cost of “the invasion of D.C.,” which included the dismantling of 50 homeless encampments, is equal to one-quarter the cost of operating public housing for all homeless individuals in the nation’s capital on any given night. Note that public housing reduces crime and improves education and health outcomes.

There are, then, many reasons — cost, efficient use of personnel and resources, a hallowed democratic tradition of keeping the military out of domestic politics — why the National Guard and U.S. Army have not been ordered to assist with crime prevention since 1894.

And here’s another reason: Even if Trump is right that Washington, D.C., is now “a safe city,” what’s to prevent the nation’s capital from returning to “crime, bloodshed, bedlam, squalor and worse” the moment the troops return home? 

Glenn C. Altschuler is The Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Emeritus Professor of American Studies at Cornell University.