The District of Columbia Council approved a measure that would allow people who committed crimes in their youth to apply for a chance to have their sentences reduced.
The bill, which passed on Tuesday, would allow judges to decide whether offenders who were younger than 25 at the time of when they committed a crime and have served at least 15 years would be deserving of an early prison release.
Critics of the legislation argue it would let hundreds of violent criminals back into society, but supporters say it would boost the criminal justice system, citing research that says offenders who commit crimes in their late teens and early 20s lack complete brain maturity and deserve more lenient treatment, according to a report by the New York Times.
The bill has few limits on who would be eligible for review and includes offenders convicted of violent acts such as murder and sex crimes.
Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, has been critical of the bill, saying she doesn’t believe the bill respects the views of victims and the families of victims.
The D.C. Police Department argue they believe the bill could prompt the early release of hundreds of violent gun offenders during a time when gun crimes are up in the city.
“This impact on victims & our community can’t be overlooked,” the department said in a tweet.
Some crime victims like April Goggans, an organizer with the local Black Lives Matter chapter, say there has been misinformation distorting victims’ perspectives on the bill.
“As a black woman and mother who has survived sexual assault and intra-community violence, I will not tolerate being spoken for,” Goggans wrote in a letter to the editor in the Washington Post. “I support the Second Look Amendment Act without any reservations. Keeping people in jail does not make us safer. I reject the intentional spread of misinformation and the weaponizing of some survivors’ experiences while dismissing what justice means to others.”
The bill has the potential to allow 300 people to apply for a sentence reduction.
