Washington, DC · 2022 to 2025
In DC, Black women's reported assault rate is 2 to 3 times Hispanic women's and about 10 times White women's
The gap is widest for the most serious assaults. Age doesn't explain it, and where women live explains only part of it.
From 2022 through 2025, the Metropolitan Police Department recorded 56,092 victims of aggravated and simple assault in Washington, DC. Counted against the number of women and men who live in the city, the reports fall very unevenly.
Black women's reported assault rate was 4,205 per 100,000 residents a year. That is 3.2 times the rate for Hispanic women (1,304) and 10.2 times the rate for White women (412). It is also higher than the rate for men in any group, including Black men (3,114).
Asian women's rate rests on few victims and moved by about a fifth between periods, so it is left out of the comparisons in the text. Source: MPD victims in FBI NIBRS files; ACS 2024 5-year population.
The gap is widest for the most serious assaults
If the gap came mostly from Black women reporting minor assaults more often, it would be widest for minor assaults. The data shows the reverse. Against White women, the ratio is 9.7 times for simple assaults without a serious injury, 13.8 times for assaults with a serious injury and 23.3 times for assaults with a gun.
Homicide, not shown, is 12.7 times, but it rests on five White women killed, so its range is wide (5.2 to 40.3). Source: MPD victims in FBI NIBRS files.
Reporting differences would need to be enormous to produce a gap this size. Nationally, 51% of violent crimes against Black victims and 48% against White victims reached the police in 2024. For reporting alone to produce a tenfold gap, White women would have to report under 10% of their assaults even if Black women reported every one.
The gap also held across the period. Against White women it was 10.1 times in the first two years and 10.3 times in the last two.
What accounts for part of it
The analysis tested the explanations the data allows.
- Age does not explain it. Compared at the same age mix, Black women's rate is 4,852 per 100,000 against 382 for White women.
- Where women live explains part of it. Black women's neighborhoods record 2.8 times White women's rate of assaults with a dangerous weapon per resident. That would predict a 2.8 times gap in aggravated assault; the observed gap is 14.4 times, leaving about 5.2 times unaccounted for.
- Intimate partner assault is a larger share of assaults on Black women (32.7%) than on White women (22.0%). Leaving partner assaults out, Black women's rate is still 8.8 times White women's. The relationship is unknown more often for White women's cases, so this comparison is the least certain.
Where women live is itself shaped by segregation and disinvestment. A gap that narrows when neighborhoods are compared has been located, not explained away. Income could also matter a great deal: 26.3% of Black women in DC live below the poverty line, against 5.1% of White women. Victim records hold no income, so the analysis cannot test it directly.
What this does not show
- Why. The data shows a difference in reported rates. It does not measure causes, offenders or circumstances.
- Every assault. Only assaults that reached the police are counted. The national victimization survey, where women describe their own assaults, finds similar rates for Black and White women nationally, and a gap of 1.5 to 2 times in large cities. Hospital emergency departments, which don't depend on a call to police, see a gap closer to the police one. What the assault-victim gap measures looks at why the sources differ. Police data also reflects where officers patrol and who calls them, so it can't separate more policing or more reporting from more assaults.
- Exact group membership. Victim race is recorded by officers; the Census counts residents by their own answers. If multiracial victims were recorded as Black, the ratio to White women would be 9.4 times instead of 10.2. Ethnicity is unknown for 30.6% of women victims, and if the White women among them were Hispanic, the ratio to White women would rise to 19.1 times and the ratio to Hispanic women would fall to 2.2.
- People. Rates count reports, not people: someone assaulted twice counts twice. And rates divide by residents, not by the commuters and visitors who spend time in DC.
Part of the series Assault victims by race and sex, 6 reports.