How Janeese Lewis George expanded soft-on-crime youth policies

Democratic Washington, D.C. mayoral nominee Janeese Lewis George’s past record includes helping the attorney general’s office create D.C.’s lenient juvenile justice system.

Crime is a top voter issue in the November election, with youth arrests increasing for years and comprising an above-average portion of the district’s reported crime. Lewis George was the assistant prosecutor in the office’s Juvenile Section from October 2016 to January 2019 as former Attorney General Karl Racine shifted the office’s policies away from incarceration and prosecution. Now a D.C. Council member, Lewis George frames her work for Racine as “juvenile justice reform” based on “innovative, evidence-based practices.”