Shelley Broderick: For two years DC leaders sat on a plan to improve public safety
In 2022, the District suffered 174 fatal homicide shootings, a 29% increase above 2019 pre-pandemic numbers. Every homicide leaves devastated family, friends and neighborhoods begging our elected officials to do better. In recent months, DC leaders introduced emergency and permanent legislation purporting to improve public safety, but community members, advocates and directly impacted residents have staunchly opposed many of the proposed measures.
There is nothing to show that such measures provide a proven crime reduction strategy, have deterrent value, or will solve the community’s current concerns and safety issues. In fact, the proposed legislation flies in the face of the evidence-based and data-driven recommendations made by the District Task Force on Jails & Justice’s Phase II report, Jails & Justice: Our Transformation Starts Today, published in February 2021.
The task force is a high-profile independent group of experts whose formation was funded by the District in 2019 to redefine DC’s approach to its criminal legal system. District officials should have heeded the task force recommendations, which were informed by citywide engagement to understand community priorities, particularly those with lived experience. They have not.
For example, recent legislative initiatives, including Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Safer Stronger Amendment Act of 2023, propose to prevent crime and violence through increased pretrial detention. The available data does not support the notion that pretrial detention will be an effective point of intervention. The Pretrial Services Agency for the District of Columbia reported that of the 85% of defendants who were released pretrial in fiscal year 2022, 93% remained arrest-free during the pretrial period. By the same token, the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency (CSOSA) reported that in fiscal year 2021, 98% of defendants charged with a violent crime released pretrial remained arrest-free. Based on this kind of data, the task force recommended curbing pretrial detention because taking people from their jobs and families destabilizes our communities. The task force recommended that leaders “amend D.C. law to require that judges expressly consider the potential adverse effect of detention on the defendant’s dependents; parental rights; employment; housing; mental health; physical health; public benefits; immigration status; and any other adverse impact of the person’s detention.”
The task force also recommended the District “create a Young Adult problem solving docket for people up to age 25, including those charged with felonies, to participate in community-based programming as an alternative to incarceration.” The recommendation is based on the success of the San Francisco model, through which 73% of participants have remained arrest-free. By comparison, the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that 19% of people released from prison in 2012 at age 24 or younger remained arrest-free after five years. While this data does not provide a perfect comparison, it is clear we owe our young people more than traditional interventions and damaging rhetoric.
Unfortunately, the task force recommendations have been almost entirely disregarded. In its recently published report card, the task force found that of the 77 recommendations slated to be implemented in fiscal years 2021 and 2022, only two were fully implemented. While we recognize that some progress has been made on 41% of the recommendations (for which implementation has begun or is substantially complete), we can only wonder how the public safety landscape in the District would be different had more recommendations been fully implemented.
DC leaders have opted instead for panicked and fragmented responses to community violence. The District deserves evidence-based, data-driven policies and solutions that incorporate the feedback of residents most impacted by the violence. The task force provided a viable public safety plan, and the District should commit to moving these policies forward instead of opting for a frenzied and piecemeal approach. As we grapple with the tension inherent between the recommendations of the task force and the legislation currently before the DC Council, we must step beyond crisis to engage in thoughtful policy development. The District deserves better.
Shelley Broderick is chair of the District Task Force on Jails & Justice. She is dean emerita of the University of the District of Columbia’s David A. Clarke School of Law.
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