By Nina Payne
Trinity Times Correspondent
When Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser signed the Secure D.C. Omnibus Amendment Act of 2024 – better known as the D.C. Crime Bill – March 11, 2024, she set off a firestorm of controversy, with some students and criminal justice scholars at Trinity Washington University concerned about the measure’s impact.
Discussion on the new crime legislation has prompted thorough reflection on issues within D.C.’s entire criminal justice system, which Bowser has emphasized requires a complete overhaul, and criminal justice experts have also raised questions about whether this act will effectively reduce crime.
The legislation has been transmitted to Congress and its projected law date is May 18.
The D.C. Council made a unanimous decision back in February to pass the D.C. Crime Bill to make D.C. neighborhoods “safe and more secure,” following 2023’s surge in homicides, car jackings, retail thefts, and illegal gun possessions that created a sense of lawlessness throughout the nation’s capital.
The new law consolidates aspects from various pieces of legislation proposed or passed over the past year. It increases punishment or pretrial detention while also relaxing certain restrictions on police officers.
The act streamlines the process for judges to order adults and some juveniles charged with violent offenses detained while they await trial.
It also introduces a new felony for “organized retail theft” targeting repeat incidents like shelf-clearing at retail stores, broadens the definition of carjacking to simplify prosecution, resurrects a 20th century provision allowing officers to establish temporary drug-free zones in response to citizens’ fears about drug-related loitering, re-establishes a prohibition on wearing masks under certain circumstances, allows the police to force people who evade the Metro fare to provide their full name and identity and relaxes certain police reforms passed by the D.C. Council in recent years.
Scores of D.C. residents and criminal justice reform activists are concerned the new act will give police more power and won’t help to stop crime in Washington, including Trinity freshman Mikylea Williams.
The Secure D.C. Omnibus Amendment Act will give police a lot more authority and a lot less scrutiny and accountability, said Thomas Mostowy, dean of Trinity’s School of Professional and Graduate Studies and a Criminal Justice professor.
“All of the policies in D.C. that went along with Black Lives Matter are being repealed and drawn back in this bill,” Mostowy told Trinity Times. “The impacts the bill has on actual crime will be negligible.”
“Rolling back police accountability isn’t the solution to violence,” Black Lives Matter D.C. tweeted on social media in response to the Secure D.C. legislation. “In fact, nothing has changed cops’ ability to ‘do their jobs.’ The truth is they want to do the worst things more, with less accountability. Secure D.C. bill is performative and ineffective.”
The perceived lack of accountability among law enforcement officers is something that concerns Trinity sophomore Stephanie Batres, who fears more people of color will be targeted without provocation.
The Secure D.C. Omnibus Amendment Act doesn’t come without some positive aspects, Mostowy said.
There is a provision that implements more resources for young adult offenders, provides better nutrition to detention center inmates and offers services to people who need it, he said.
Since most Trinity students are also D.C. residents, Mostowy said it’s important for them to observe how policing may be different in their neighborhood as a result of the act once it becomes law, and raise any concerns they may have about that with their elected officials.
Students like Batres do have concerns about the spike in D.C. crime in recent years and said she would be trying to understand best practices in making the city safer.
“It is important for me and others to stay more informed,” she said, “and get a better understanding of the bill.”