D.C.'s mayor is proposing legislation to fill what she calls gaps in public safety efforts.
Mayor Muriel Bowser spoke Monday morning on H Street NE in the wake of a number of crimes in the District over the weekend, including a 10-year-old girl being shot as she rode in a car with her family on Mother's Day.
“The safety of our community is my top priority as your mayor," Bowser said in remarks about "making our city safer."
"This will represent a big step forward in the courts’ ability to look at all the facts, use their discretion and make decisions to hold individuals that need to be held pretrial," she continued.
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The “Safer, Stronger DC” legislation that Bowser will send to the D.C. Council aims to respond to the rise in gun violence, the rise in juvenile crime and crimes against certain workers, such as in the deadly shooting inside a Metro station in February.
If approved, the 'Safer, Stronger DC' legislation would:
- Increase penalties for violent crimes against vulnerable residents such as people who are disabled
- Increase penalties for violent crimes against transit workers and Department of Parks and Recreation employees
- Increase penalties for illegal guns
- Make strangulation a felony
- Make it easier for judges to detain adults and juveniles awaiting trial for violent crimes (This is one of the more talked-about provisions. It would allow judges to consider previous violent crimes by defendants when considering their release pending trial on new charges. Bowser said Monday that the District believes in second chances but also in accountability.)
- Expand security camera rebates
- Expand DNA collection for sex offenders
- Give police and prosecutors easier access to GPS monitoring data from people on supervised release (This would be another big change.)
- Require reporting of juvenile prosecution data
- Expand the number of members on the sentencing commission
- Give judges more discretion in their use of the Second Look Act, which lets courts reevaluate sentences
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Members of the D.C. Council are just getting a first look at the proposed legislation. Council Chair Phil Mendelson raised concerns.
“These are complicated issues. On the one hand, if someone commits a crime, we want them held. We want them locked up. On the other hand, there’s a presumption under our Constitution that a person is innocent until found guilty,” he said.
An attorney with the ACLU of D.C. said the group is reviewing the legislation but said it raises some serious civil liberty concerns.
