What is the importance of Washington D.C. in the nonfiction book, Locking Up Our Own?

The author's considerations of the historical relationship between black lawmakers and individual members of the black community is focused on the community of Washington D.C., where he worked as a public defender for several years. Its majority black population, segmented by economic and social realities, has been a microcosm of the state and situation of black communities across America. This circumstance, the author argues, led it to becoming a kind of testing ground for laws and law enforcement practices that, in many cases, were applied in cities across America.