The current MPD district boundaries.

Many residents in the District of Columbia were up in arms over the decennial ward redistricting process which would have meant some residents switching councilmembers. What many residents might not realize is that a similar reorganization of the city’s police structure is also currently underway.

In order “to ensure the best and most efficient delivery of police services,” the District’s Metropolitan Police Department periodically examines the boundaries of its seven police districts (Ward and police district boundaries are drawn separately; the last time the District undertook such an overhaul of police boundaries was in 2004.) Each district is split into at least five Police Service Areas, or PSAs. Some of the changes are things that the general public will never notice — for example, adjusting the number of parking spaces for officers and ensuring appropriate radio bandwidth — but others loom larger, like a possible change to the commander who communicates any given resident’s district, or even where their home district’s police station is located.

Take, for example, residents in Dupont Circle, in which the area east of 18th Street and north of Q Street NW will be split between the Second and Third Districts:

At present this area is part of Police Service Area (PSA) 208. The most notable part about these new boundaries is that it would split the 17th Street commercial corridor between two districts and two PSAs. … According to Assistant Police Chief Diane Groomes, a chunk of Police Service Area (PSA) 208 will go back to the Third District. There will likely be an additional PSA in the Dupont-Logan area as well. “At this time, we have 46 PSAs in the city and we will go to 56 PSAs,” said Groomes.

This is but one example of how police redistricting can creates an interesting scenario — the revised PSA boundaries mean that the south side of the 1600 block of U Street will fall in the Second District, while the Third District’s headquarters is located across the street. Of course, there’s nothing stopping a resident of the Second District from using the Third District station for help or to report a crime.

Police management also hope that by increasing the number of PSAs — thereby decreasing the amount of space each PSA has to cover — they can increase the amount of attention given to each geographic area. Chief Cathy Lanier has been explaining the possible changes to residents at a series of community meetings, which began last week; you can see a proposed list of changes to each district’s boundaries at MPD’s website.