The Unconstitutional 'Secure DC' Plan – A False Promise of Safety"
By Joshua Burris
Introduction
In a hasty response to rising crime in the District, councilmember Brooke Pinto has proposed the “Secure DC” plan. Included in the legislative package is the equally misnamed "Addressing Crime through Targeted Interventions and Violence Enforcement (ACTIVE) Act of 2023”. The bill has raised concerns from multiple groups, including the chief justices of the DC Superior and Appeals Courts for being a potential 4th amendment violation. The ACTIVE Act also establishes discarding a firearm as a new criminal offense. The “Secure DC” plan also intends to make permanent the temporary Prioritizing Public Safety Emergency Amendment Act of 2023. If passed, DC would see a drastic expansion of pretrial detentions for both adults and juveniles. Also included in Secure DC is the “Accountability and Victim Protection Amendment Act of 2023” which would require longer sentences for victims of domestic violence and sex crimes and create new crimes from already existing ones. The Metro Safety Amendment Act of 2023 seeks to strengthen the civil penalty for fare evasion on the metro. If observed evading the fare, Metro Transit officers would be required to approach the individual and issue a fine. If the individual refuses to provide their identification, they are to be detained and subject to a $100 fine.
Analysis
Ms. Pinto’s proposed Secure DC legislation is seemingly targeted and written to give the illusion of action but will instead open the door to stripping Black Washingtonians of their Constitutional rights while doing little to actually deter criminal activity. While I agree that urgent action needs to be taken in response to rising crime in Washington, D.C., I think addressing the systemic issues that lead to crime is the more effective approach to solving the problem rather than the harmful, ineffective, and largely performative solutions Ms. Pinto has suggested.
Referring to her Secure DC Plan: "Too many of our residents are afraid. My comprehensive package of legislative initiatives is a compilation of common-sense, targeted interventions that will urgently and practically improve safety for DC residents” says Pinto. For years, Black Washingtonians have expressed fear and distress regarding conditions in the neglected, under-resourced neighborhoods of the city. During this time, city leaders have failed to adequately address the root causes of poverty and economic inequality in the city. Already existing drivers of poverty and crime like unaffordable housing, food insecurity, a mental health crisis, and the criminal justice system have only been made worse by the pandemic. These issues are all major contributors to the local increase in crime. Instead of doing the hard work of partnering with the community and relying on the city’s own data to find real, lasting solutions to these issues, Ms. Pinto has opted to draft draconian, outdated legislation that we already know won’t work. As written, Sec 808 of the ACTIVE Act includes language that would allow law enforcement to search at “...any time of the day or night, with or without a search warrant or with or without cause...” anyone convicted of a gun offense, on probation, supervised release, or parole. Inherent in this proposition is the assumption that people who have been found guilty of crimes and have served their time are somehow less deserving of constitutional rights. When reintegrating into society, some privileges may be withheld, but the 4th Amendment protection from unreasonable search and seizure is non-negotiable.
“Because there’s no way to know who has a prior conviction, police are then given the authority to profile and search everyone who looks like they have a gun charge. ”
What’s even worse about this bill is that it raises the question of how a police officer is to determine, on sight, who does and does not have a prior gun conviction. Because there’s no way to know who has a prior conviction, police are then given the authority to profile and search everyone who looks like they have a gun charge. In DC, where the perpetrators and victims of gun crimes are heavily segregated along racial lines, Black Washingtonians risk being misidentified, searched, and possibly killed for no other reason than looking like someone who has a gun charge. It’s absurd and by increasing interactions with law enforcement, the bill increases the likelihood of police violence and therefore makes the city less safe.
Moving on to the Prioritizing Public Safety Emergency Amendment Act of 2023. This 90-day emergency legislation was passed 12-1 by the city council, therefore bypassing the mandatory public hearing required for regularly passed legislation. As the October 18 expiration date approaches, councilmember Pinto is pushing to make the emergency legislation permanent, despite the fact that crime has not dropped since the initial passage. If passed, the drastic expansion of pretrial detentions for presumed innocent adults and children would be disastrous for individuals awaiting trial, increasing criminality and prosecutorial coercion. As DC Justice Labs explains “When people are held pretrial before they have been convicted of a crime, they can fall behind in school, lose their jobs (and health insurance), fall behind on rent, become unable to care for families (school drop-off/pick-up, doctor appointments, etc.), lose custody of their children, and more”. Losing your job, home, and social connections because you spent months awaiting trial in jail will increase criminal activity, according to the Brookings Institute. Furthermore, the DC jail is notoriously inhumane, so much so that prosecutors use pretrial detention there as a tool to obtain guilty pleas from defendants made desperate for better conditions in Federal custody. 87% of the people being held at the DC jail are Black and more than half are being held without a conviction according to DOC. Lastly, Denying the right to a fair and speedy trial to even one person accused of a crime is an injustice, expanding pretrial detention and subjecting more Black adults and children is unconscionable and a grave miscarriage of justice.
Most people agree that survivors of domestic violence and sex crimes deserve support, understanding, and justice after these traumatic experiences. However, nationwide only 2.5% of sexual assaults end in incarceration. Part of the reason is due to complex personal decision-making leading many survivors to never formally report their assault. Instead of expanding the infrastructure related to reporting and seeking help for these crimes, providing deterrents for these crimes, or investing in trauma-informed care as suggested by Naida Henao of the Network for Victim Recovery of DC, the Accountability and Victim Protection Amendment Act of 2023 focuses on enhancing punitive measures by extending sentencing times and further complicating the DC criminal code. Notably, the bill makes strangulation a standalone felony. As Patrice Sulton of the DC Justice Lab explains, “strangling someone in DC is already a crime, it’s called assault.” In the process of trying to appear tough on crime without actually doing anything, Brooke Pinto is using the pain of survivors to restrict judicial discretion and expand the police state while ignoring the needs of said survivors.
Lastly, I would like to address the Metro Safety Amendment Act of 2023. It is an outright assault on the poor. Pinto points to the correlation between fare evasion and crime on the system to claim the bill will “ensure” safety on Metro. But correlation is not causation. Not every person who rides the train without paying commits a crime during their ride, but this bill treats them all as criminals, despite fare evasion being decriminalized in 2018. Furthermore, how does a police officer being able to ask for ID and arrest someone for not complying stop actual harm from being done? It doesn’t, instead, it increases police contact with Black youth who are the sole targets of fare enforcement efforts. Furthermore, where is the compassion for people living in poverty? The individuals not paying for Metro rides are oftentimes making the decision between paying for what should be a free service vs. their only meal for that day. Instead of crafting policy to proactively address the root causes of fare evasion, the city council seems poised once again to criminalize non-harmful behavior and increase Black youth interactions with law enforcement.
“What is most concerning about Ms. Pinto’s legislation is not the fact that the laws don’t actually do what they claim to, but that they reveal who she deems deserving of basic rights and who she doesn’t. ”
What is most concerning about Ms. Pinto’s legislation is not the fact that the laws don’t actually do what they claim to, but that they reveal who she deems deserving of basic rights and who she doesn’t. They reveal a preference for reactionary, failed policies that sound good in re-election campaigns but sacrifice the life and liberty of our poorest residents while continuing the destructive cycle of poverty and incarceration.
Solutions:
If city leaders are serious about resolving crime, they must stop neglecting the needs of the poorest residents. DC is the most heavily policed city in America, yet crime is persistent. We must avoid punitive and harmful criminal legislation like Secure DC. Instead, we should embrace a compassionate, data-driven, trauma-informed approach to end the increased violence we have seen across DC. Policies like Universal Basic Income would decrease the motivation for a great number of crimes by improving the mental health of recipients and reducing poverty and homelessness. Increasing access to affordable housing and healthy food in Wards 7 and 8 would do more to make the city livable for everyone. Lastly, passing the bills included in #SafeandFreeDC, a package of smart, thoughtfully community-based legislation would be the fresh, community-driven response to social injustice that DC needs.
Washington Post Article
This week, I had the pleasure of speaking with Petula Dvorak from The Washington Post. We talked about how all too often, well-meaning policy becomes ineffective when met with the cold indifference of government bureaucracy. I also spoke about my personal experiences with youth homelessness, specifically the difficulty I faced while seeking services to materially improve my life. From my perspective, the disconnect is clear; for social safety net policies to work, we need a caring, responsive government apparatus flexible enough to quickly identify and accommodate the unique challenges faced by marginalized members of society.
Excerpt from article