Nationwide crime is down. Murder and robberies have been in constant decline for more than a decade. But that doesn't hold true for Washington D.C., where under-21 homicides have increased dramatically. Every day, parents are increasingly worried that their teenagers won't come home tonight.

In 1993, Smith's oldest son and daughter, then teenagers, were shot to death in a case of mistaken identity as they drove to a church Christmas party in Southeast Washington. Now Smith's surviving children, Charles, 15, and Marquis, 13, are at a vulnerable age, and she broods over them with a mixture of gloom and hope.

"When my big kids were killed," she said, "I looked at my little kids and I thought, 'One day, they'll be teenagers, too,' and that is today. I have them again, and I have to protect the ones I have left."

Of course protecting your kids in D.C. is nearly impossible. Guns were effectively banned in Washington D.C. in 1976, so unless you can hire private security, you're pretty much screwed.