<mediadc-video-embed data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1668611842624,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"0000016c-7763-d473-a96f-77eb53420000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1668611842624,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"0000016c-7763-d473-a96f-77eb53420000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"rawHtml":"
var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ "div": "Brid_68453969", "obj": {"id":"27789","width":"16","height":"9","video":"1184885"} }); rn","_id":"00000184-80eb-da74-a1bd-8afbbb580000","_type":"2f5a8339-a89a-3738-9cd2-3ddf0c8da574"}”>Video EmbedCity Council members in Washington, D.C., lowered penalties for some crimes and rejected efforts to increase the punishment for others in an overhaul of the city’s criminal code on Tuesday, despite an increase in some crimes across the district.
The D.C. City Council voted to eliminate most mandatory minimum sentences in its vote, excluding first-degree murder from the reform but paving the way for most offenders to spend less time in jail with its vote.
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D.C. police Chief Robert Contee last month blasted the removal of mandatory minimum sentences.
“If we’re reducing a sentence from 10 years down to five years, that makes the city less safe,” he said in October.
Gun violence rose dramatically in the first half of 2022 and continues to bedevil a city that has struggled to get crime rates under control.
But most members of the D.C. City Council voted against increasing penalties for gun violence offenses. City council members argued there is not enough evidence to support a link between raising penalties for gun-related crimes and lowering violence.
Liberal Councilman Charles Allen had cited racial bias in the existing criminal code as a reason why the overhaul was necessary.
“Many members of Congress in 1901 were former slaveholders. When we have a criminal code like that, it welcomes bias,” Allen said last month.
Mayor Muriel Bowser, who last week won reelection to a third term, had strongly opposed the changes to the criminal code. After Tuesday’s vote, the overhaul now goes to her desk.
Similar to most major cities, leaders in the nation’s capital have struggled to balance calls for racially focused reforms with the need to maintain order since the civil unrest of 2020.
Armed carjackings are up 21% so far this year over the same period in 2021. The vast majority of the offenders arrested for carjacking this year are 15 or 16 years old, placing many under more lenient criminal justice standards for juveniles.
Bowser and Contee have broken with the City Council with increasing frequency as crime in the district has climbed. Both have called for more measures to keep violence under control than other city leaders will approve.
Crime factored heavily into Republicans’ closing argument in the midterm elections this year. Many pointed to Democratic decisions in crime-ridden cities like Washington, D.C., to argue that Republicans would do a better job of keeping people safe.
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Washington, D.C., is one of the only cities continuing down a path of loosening its criminal justice standards.
Most other cities facing a similar crime problem and similar political headwinds have moved toward stricter punishments and stepped-up policing amid growing concerns among the public about feeling safe in the streets.
