The D.C. Council passed an emergency public safety bill on Tuesday in the wake of rising crime in the city. The move comes months after Capitol Hill lawmakers worked to overhaul various crime bills from the district.
D.C. Council members said the district needs to address rising crime rates immediately. As of Tuesday, homicides are up 17%, total violent crime is up 33%, and all recorded crime is up 30% compared to this time last year, per Metropolitan Police Department data.
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"We are in a state of emergency right now," councilwoman Brooke Pinto, the bill's sponsor, told reporters on Monday ahead of the vote. "And like in any emergency, we have to act like it and we have to act urgently as a government to address the problem that we're seeing."
Pinto added that "when we have members of our community being shot and killed at rates that we haven't seen for 20 years, that's an emergency. Period. That was an emergency several months ago. That's an emergency today."
The emergency public safety bill will create a new offense for firing a gun in public and make it easier for prosecutors to extradite people for misdemeanors. The most significant provision is one that makes it easier for judges to hold people in jail pending trial if they have a history of committing violent crimes.
The initial version of the bill would have broadly increased pretrial detention for juveniles, but it sparked opposition from criminal justice reform activists and Washington, D.C., Attorney General Brian Schwalb in late June, as they argued the language was too broad and could harm juveniles. Now, the language is tighter, and the provision specifically focuses on juveniles that commit violent offenses, such as homicide, sexual abuse, carjacking, and assault.
On June 7, Washington recorded more than 100 homicides in the first six months of 2023, the earliest that the district has hit the mark in two decades.
"I think we're going to be safer, because people who are committing violent crime won't be on the street to commit more violent crime," Mayor Muriel Bowser said Monday.
The council has worked to update the public safety laws that have not been comprehensively changed since 1901. However, the district has faced significant pushback from national leaders, mostly Republicans who are zeroing in on the Democratic-controlled district as a spotlight for the effects of liberal crime policies.
Washington, D.C.'s criminal code, like all legislation coming out of the district, is subject to congressional oversight. In February and March, the House and Senate voted to overturn an overhaul of the criminal code, marking the first time in 30 years that Congress has repealed a local law passed by the D.C. Council.
President Joe Biden went against the calls from the more left-leaning members of his party and signed the bill, which effectively overturned the D.C. Council's law. If the code had been allowed to continue, it would have weakened penalties for several crimes, including carjackings and homicide, and gone into effect in 2026.
A second bill that came before Congress focused on police reform, including prohibiting the use of neck restraints, increasing access to body camera footage, and revising officer discipline procedures.
Both the House and Senate voted to overturn the reforms in May, but Biden vetoed the congressional effort, which allowed the police reforms to remain in effect.
D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, who originally appeared before Congress advocating overhauling the criminal code, changed his tune on Monday.
"Criminals can get away with murder in this city," Mendelson said during a press conference.
Pinto told reporters that within the first three months of 2023, the district "had over 100 cases where people were charged with a crime of violence, released pretrial and recommitted another violent offense." These statistics have been shared by D.C. Police and national lawmakers over the months.
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) said during a March hearing on the D.C. Council crime bill that "on average, any given homicide suspect in D.C. has already been arrested 11 times before he or she actually commits homicide." Many officials, including former Police Chief Robert Contee, have shared this statistic.
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Before leaving his position, Contee argued against claims that his officers were involved in a lack of prosecutions in reference to a report that showed the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., declined to prosecute 67% of people arrested by police officers in 2022.
"Folks are looking at the council to solve this. I don't have a badge to make arrests. I don't have a badge to investigate. But what will make a difference is increasing the closure rate, and what also will make a difference is more aggressive prosecutions," Mendelson said.