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Craig Hudson

The D.C. Council on Tuesday passed a massive public safety package that puts the liberal city on a track toward harsher punishments for a range of crimes from illegal gun possession to retail theft, a new direction forged by months of intense outcry from residents and businesses over last year’s historic crime spike.

The near-unanimous passage of the legislation — the Secure D.C. Omnibus Amendment Act — represents the council’s most significant response to that surge. Last year’s proliferation of carjackings and the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/interactive/2024/dc-crime-homicide-victims-shooting-violence/" target="_blank">most homicides in a quarter-century</a> left many residents describing an atmosphere of fear, and a spike in property crime had others decrying a perceived sense of lawlessness. The bill passed with 12 votes in favor and council member Trayon White Sr. (D-Ward 8) voting present, as he had done in the council’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/02/06/dc-council-crime-bill-vote/" target="_blank">first vote last month</a>.

The debate surrounding the bill has forced robust reflection on the problems within D.C.’s criminal justice ecosystem — which Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) has said needs a full reset — and about whether this legislation will actually drive down crime.

Inside the D.C. Council’s turn away from progressive crime strategies

The council pushed the legislation forward with some amendments Tuesday, as significant public and political pressure hung in the backdrop, including from Congress on the national stage and from influential business trade groups worried about the impact of crime in downtown D.C. And two council members, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/02/18/dc-council-charles-allen-recall-campaign-starts/" target=_blank>Charles Allen</a> (D-Ward 6) and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/02/20/nadeau-recall-dc-ward-1-crime/" target=_blank>Brianne K. Nadeau</a> (D-Ward 1), are facing recalls over the issue of crime; both voted in favor of Secure D.C. on Tuesday.

Lawmakers have stopped short of promising a sea change as a result of the legislation and have frequently debated whether provisions such as expanding felony theft or creating temporary “drug-free zones” will prevent crime. But many argued that the legislation is intended to send a message that D.C. is taking crime seriously.

“We have a responsibility to provide for the safety and well-being of our residents, visitors and business owners in our city, and today I think we lived up to that responsibility,” said council member Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2), who led the legislation.

The bill brings together elements from numerous pieces of legislation proposed or enacted over the last year, enhancing punishment or pretrial detention while also loosening some restrictions on police officers.

The legislation would make it easier for judges to order adults and certain juveniles charged with violent offenses detained while they await trial through most of this year; expand the definition of carjacking to make the cases easier to prosecute; create a new felony for “organized retail theft,” aimed at repeat shelf-clearing at stores like CVS and Target; and revives a 1990s-era tool that would allow officers to create temporary drug-free zones after residents demanded attention to drug-related loitering.

Understanding the D.C. Council’s omnibus crime bill

Bowser issued a statement Tuesday night applauding the bill’s passage.

“We are a city that is committed to creating opportunity and that believes in second chances, but we will not tolerate violence and we will not tolerate criminal activity that disrupts our sense of safety and our ability to build thriving neighborhoods,” she said.

The mayor had argued in a letter to the council against any amendments that would “weaken” the bill.

But debate became heated Tuesday over several amendments that some members argued challenged the liberal city’s values, showcasing lawmakers’ internal struggle over just how far to go to crack down on certain crimes that have dominated the public spotlight.

Council member Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4) argued passionately against decreasing the felony theft threshold from $1,000 to $500, a move she said would do nothing to prevent theft but give more people felony records. Her amendment instead sought to make it a felony if someone committed more than one theft in a six-month period of items costing more than $1,000 in aggregate.

And Lewis George pointed to data from the D.C. Sentencing Commission showing that just 54 percent of people arrested for felony or misdemeanor theft were charged between 2018 and 2023, leading her to argue that a big part of the problem was that the cases were not being pursued. (The U.S. attorney’s office disputed the data, saying their records showed they charged nearly 900 people with theft last year but the commission’s only showed 649.)

“The punishment should fit the crime, not be based on what is appealing to prosecutors,” Lewis George said. “Charging hundreds of more D.C. residents with felonies … will contribute to mass incarceration in the District and will not work.”

In lowering the felony theft threshold, Pinto said she was trying to respond to a reality she had observed while crafting the bill: “People are stealing things in the city with zero consequence,” she said.

The problem, she said, was that many misdemeanor theft cases in practice do not move forward in court with prosecutors because they are “overwhelming the system” and, even if prosecutors do bring them, sentences often do not include any jail time. The result is a sense of impunity, she argued. “We have to send a really strong message that the status quo cannot be tolerated,” Pinto said on the dais.

But Pinto could not sway any council members to her side. Lewis George’s amendment passed 12-1.

D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) said Lewis George “got it right.” “There is, unfortunately when it comes to crime, the tendency to demagogue — I’m not accusing anyone here — and to say, ‘I have the solution to crime. We’re going to have longer sentences. We’re going to make everything a felony’ — the research is clear that is not actually what decreases crime.”

(A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office strongly disputed that prosecutors do not take misdemeanor shoplifting seriously and said the amendment would have changed the consequences for those who are convicted, not how prosecutors bring cases.)

Pinto also sought to restore a provision that would expand the collection of DNA from people charged with certain felonies after they are arrested, arguing that it would help solve more crimes, especially rape. Last month, council member Kenyan R. McDuffie (I-At Large) successfully led an amendment to remove the provision from the bill on the grounds that it violated people’s civil liberties. Pinto returned Tuesday with a compromise: Instead of collecting DNA from any person arrested in a felony in D.C., she proposed collecting DNA after someone is charged with a violent crime or sexual assault and a judge finds probable cause.

McDuffie said he appreciated the changes but believed it still went against the principle of innocent until proven guilty — and, he argued, D.C.’s values.

“I want everyone to understand what we’re doing here,” McDuffie told colleagues at a breakfast ahead of the vote. “The fact that 31 states do some form of this doesn’t make it right. In our city, which is different from a lot of those 31 states, who is this going to impact? We know,” he said, referring to Black D.C. residents who are disproportionately represented in the city’s justice system.

But McDuffie could not sway his colleagues, as he did last month. Pinto’s amendment to restore the expansion of DNA collection passed 10-3, with some members who backed McDuffie last time, like Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5), saying Pinto had added a “level of thoughtfulness and nuance” to her proposal that assuaged concerns.

Numerous council members insisted during Tuesday’s meeting that the passage of Secure D.C. was only one piece of the work to bring down crime, which has trended downward in the early part of this year, and that the work depended, too, on other partners from police to prosecutors. Most pointedly, White advocated for an amendment to require Bowser to develop a comprehensive public safety plan, which Pinto accepted.

White said he was drawing on his lived experience as a young Black man from Ward 8 who has lost friends to gun violence and watched others go to prison, leaving him with a sense that D.C. has long failed to address the root causes of crime with comprehensive strategies vs. recycled ideas focusing on punishment.

“We need a public safety plan, and until we get that, we’ll be here over and over again, throwing things against the wall, hoping they stick,” White said.

The bill passed as Congress, which has oversight over the District, continues to look for ways to intervene in D.C.’s criminal justice policy, a reality that Pinto has acknowledged multiple times while advocating for the legislation. On Thursday, in fact, the House Oversight Committee is expected to consider legislation that would remove an option for judges to give more lenient sentences to young offenders up to age 24, instead capping the age at 18, and would require judges to issue mandatory minimums for young offenders. The bill would take away the council’s ability to make changes to minimum sentencing laws, deeply worrying Mendelson.

Over the last year, as the number of killings and carjacking surged in Washington, Republican-led House committees held several hearings about public safety policy in D.C., and Congress blocked a pair of crime and policing bills that were branded as soft on crime. Secure D.C., by contrast, adjusts or walks back some changes imposed after the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis in 2020, when D.C. lawmakers acted swiftly to pass laws aimed at increased accountability for law enforcement. For example, the bill restores law enforcement’s ability to review their body-camera footage before writing police reports in most cases and loosens language prohibiting neck restraints and certain vehicular pursuit tactics.

The pivot from liberal strategies has divided District residents. Some have embraced the legislation as necessary and a relief after there were more homicides last year than in any year since 1997. Others packed the council chamber Tuesday to argue against the bill, saying it rolls back important accountability provisions and lacks evidence that it will drive down crime.

Members of the Washington Interfaith Network held signs saying “SecureDC is not safe” and “We want action not reaction” as members of the council walked inside.

The group pointed to a letter signed by 75 religious leaders from all eight wards of the city sent Monday to the council and city officials, urging them to reject facets of the omnibus legislation they said were likely to do more harm than good.

The Rev. Michael Campbell, an associate pastor at Peace Fellowship Church in Ward 7, said he worried that loosening some restrictions on police would lead young Black men in his ward to “fear that this bill allows police to continue their corrupt acts.” And the Rev. Karen Brau, senior pastor at Luther Place Memorial Church, said too much of the omnibus bill focuses on short-term, punitive solutions to crime rather than preventive measures that would support families who need help the most.

Supporters of the legislation, however, said they were tired of reading about the random acts of violence in the city — targeting people picking up a spouse from work or delivering food — and a sense that city leaders were not doing anything about it. Brittany Sawyer, executive director of the Citizens Association of Georgetown, said her community experienced three <a href="https://georgetowner.com/articles/2024/01/08/crime-baby-returned-after-georgetown-car-theft-armed-robbery-at-saras-market-local-reports/" target=_blank>consecutive crimes</a> in a matter of weeks that shook neighbors: the armed robbery of a beloved small community market; a carjacking in which a baby was kidnapped; and an antisemitic attack on worshipers <a href="https://www.dcnewsnow.com/news/local-news/washington-dc/this-is-not-okay-antisemitic-attack-at-georgetown-synagogue-shakes-jewish-community/" target=_blank>at a local synagogue.</a>

“We are fed up — it’s time for change,” her friend, Georgetown resident Elizabeth Miller, said outside the council chamber Tuesday. “I don’t think this is the magic pill, but I think it’s a step in the right direction toward making our city safer.”

Michael Brice-Saddler contributed to this report.

Drake University, BAJMC in magazine journalism; BA in writing

Meagan Flynn covers D.C. government and politics on The Post's Metro team.

Meagan Flynn

Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting, finalist (part of a team), 2020

Brown University, B.A.

Emily Davies is a reporter covering crime and criminal justice in Washington, D.C. She started at The Washington Post as an intern in June 2019.

Emily Davies

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