The District of Columbia Office of the Inspector General has concluded that the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) spent years without the internal safeguards needed to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the city’s crime data, identifying what investigators described as “a prolonged, systemic breakdown” in the department’s crime classification and reporting controls.
The findings stem from an inspection requested by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) after allegations surfaced in late 2025 that crimes had been misclassified or downgraded. Rather than revisit individual crime reports, investigators examined whether MPD had adequate policies, oversight, training and technology to produce trustworthy crime statistics. They concluded the department did not.
“We found that MPD’s crime reporting controls broke down significantly during the period we examined,” the inspector general wrote in the 40-page document. “An independent unit that reviewed crime reports for accuracy was shut down in 2013 and never replaced. The records system lacked basic controls over who could access and change data. Policies went years without updates. And the division responsible for identifying internal risks had never examined crime reporting accuracy.”
Investigators said those failures left the department without an integrated system to verify that offenses were properly classified before crime data became part of the public record.
“We found that MPD’s internal control framework for crime classification and reporting had deteriorated over more than a decade,” the report states. “The Staff Review Unit, MPD’s independent review function that served as the system’s quality check, was disbanded and never replaced.”
The report also raises concerns about weaknesses inside MPD’s Mark43 records management system.
According to the inspector general, officers could submit reports for supervisory review without completing required narratives because the system lacked controls to prevent incomplete reports from advancing. Auditors reviewed 107 rejected reports and found that 66, or approximately 62%, were returned because they contained blank or insufficient narratives or other required information was missing.
Investigators also found that authorized users could modify approved reports, including offense classifications, “without triggering a secondary approval step or notifying the reporting officer or their supervisor.” The report says the department also lacked documented procedures governing user permissions and routine reviews of audit logs capable of detecting inappropriate changes.
The inspector general issued five recommendations, including restoring an independent crime report review unit, strengthening controls over access to the records management system, updating long-outdated policies and making crime reporting accuracy a regular part of MPD’s audit and risk assessment process.
MPD agreed with all five recommendations.
According to the report, the department has begun establishing an Office of Data Integrity and Analytics, auditing user access within Mark43, updating reporting policies and developing new procedures to monitor crime data quality.
The report notes that MPD declined one recommendation calling for periodic comparisons between Office of Unified Communications calls for service and resulting police reports. The inspector general said such reviews could identify incidents that may have been omitted from crime reporting and urged the department to reconsider.
Calls and emails seeking comment were left with the Metropolitan Police Department and the Office of Mayor Muriel Bowser. Neither had responded at time of publication.
On July 29, in her first press conference since the report was released, the mayor said: “My expectation for any member of the police department… is to make sure that we are accurately reporting crime.”
