Dr. John Lott was interviewed by Newsweek about the claims that Trump’s federalization of law enforcement in D.C. was racist. The sources Lott provided in an email to the reporter are shown below the quotes from the article. It was published at Revista La Velez and Click Gloria.
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“I think it’s pretty obvious. In a city like D.C., the latest data shows that 96 percent of murder victims are Black. So if you go 13 days without a murder, you’re saving a lot of Black lives, disproportionately compared to other groups,” John Lott, founder and president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, told Newsweek.
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Based on Lott’s analysis, a successful crackdown in D.C.—or any major city with similar demographics—would, by statistical reality, disproportionately benefit Black residents.
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“If murder stops in D.C., the people who benefit overwhelmingly are Black,” Lott said.
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The same pattern holds nationally. For decades, gun violence has exacted a severe and unequal toll on Black communities, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of injuries. Between 2019 and 2021, Black victims made up 96 percent of all homicides in Washington, D.C., according to crime data reviewed by Lott. In 2024, Black Americans—who comprised just 13.8 percent of the U.S. population—accounted for 52 percent of all murder victims.
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That imbalance, Lott and other supporters argue, is why crackdowns on violent crime, however controversial, may deliver their most significant gains in the very communities critics worry they’ll harm. If the policies are effective in reducing violence, they say, the data suggests Black lives would be saved in greater numbers simply because Black Americans are more likely to be the victims.
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“It’s clear that the lives being saved are overwhelmingly those of Black individuals,” said Lott, who advocates for expanding gun rights and argues that higher rates of lawful gun ownership reduce crime. “And if you look at the indirect victims of crime, Black communities are also disproportionately affected—businesses shut down, jobs disappear, and property values decline.”
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Polling and community responses suggest that support for stronger policing is not limited to white conservatives. Many Black Americans in high-crime neighborhoods want more—not less—police presence. Gallup surveys from 2024 show that 64 percent of Black adults were satisfied with police-community relations, up from post-2020 lows.
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“A lot of people focus on the fact that Blacks are arrested and convicted of violent crimes at high rates. What’s ignored is that 90 percent of Black murder victims are killed by other Blacks. If you make it easier on Black criminals, unintentionally, you’re making more Black people victims,” Lott said.
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Figures from the Bureau of Justice Statistics reinforce Lott’s point. Between 2017 and 2021, white victims reported white offenders in 8.7 million incidents, compared with 2.38 million involving Black offenders. Black victims also overwhelmingly reported Black offenders—1.88 million incidents—compared with 371,000 involving white offenders.
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Blacks make up about 13 percent of the U.S. population, according to census data. Whites account for about 62 percent. . . .
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While the quotes above are from a telephone interview with the reporter, Jesus Mesa, Dr. Lott also provided the following information in an email.
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Question 1: The latest data that we have for DC is up through 2021. During the 2019 to 2021 period, 96% of murder victims were black. For Chicago, in 2024, about 80% of murder victims were black.
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In 2024 nationally, of the 15,795 murder victims, 8,158, or 52% were blacks. See the attached Excel file from the FBI data. By contrast, blacks made up about 13.8% of the population in 2024..
Look at the huge drop in murders in DC that has occurred during the federalization of law enforcement, and it is clear that the lives that you are saving are clearly overwhelmingly of blacks..
The latest NCVS data from the BJS that looks at all violent crime is only from 2018 (https://crimeresearch.org/2025/07/with-the-attacks-in-cincinnati-what-is-the-rate-of-intraracial-violent-crime-blacks-committed-violent-crime-against-whites-9-2-times-more-than-the-reverse-blacks-committed-violent-crime-against-asi/ and https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv18.pdf). In that blacks make up about 563,940 of the total 5,061,940 victims of violent crime, or about 11.1%, so they are somewhat underrepresented in terms of being victims of all violent crime. We don’t have this data for individual cities, but I strongly believe blacks are the overwhelmingly victims of other violent crimes in DC simply because they are such a large share of the population..
Question 2: For murder victims, blacks are clearly the main victims. But if you look at the indirect victims of crime, I think that blacks are clearly disproportionately hurt. The high crime in urban areas such as DC and Chicago hurt blacks as businesses shut down, jobs disappear (who do you think works in those stores), who shopped in those stores, and property values take a hit (who disproportionately owned homes in those areas)..
Crime has plummeted in DC as a result of the federalization of law enforcement, and, yes, blacks are the main beneficiaries.
