DC CRIMES Act Lowers Youth Offender Age to 18, Restricts Local Council’s Power Over Existing Sentences

The DC Criminal Reforms to Immediately Make Everyone Safe Act—or the DC CRIMES Act—is a major overhaul of how the District of Columbia handles young people in the justice system. The biggest change is a significant narrowing of who qualifies as a "youth offender." Previously, anyone up to age 24 was eligible for certain rehabilitation-focused programs and sentencing flexibility under the Youth Rehabilitation Amendment Act of 1985. This bill cuts that age limit down drastically: only individuals 18 years old or younger will now qualify for youth offender status.

The 19-to-24 Gap: Losing a Lifeline

This change immediately impacts thousands of young adults. If you’re 19 to 24 years old, you are now treated as an adult offender, stripped of eligibility for programs and services specifically designed for rehabilitation within the youth system. The bill also explicitly removes the requirement for D.C. planning related to facilities and treatment to consider this 18-to-24 age group at all. For a young person facing their first serious charge at 22, this is a major shift from a focus on reform to immediate adult sentencing, which can create much higher barriers to employment and housing down the line. The law also eliminates a specific provision that allowed judges to issue sentences shorter than the mandatory minimum term, further reducing judicial discretion in some cases.

The Data Dump: Juvenile Crime Goes Public

On the transparency front, the bill requires the Attorney General (AG) for D.C. to establish a new, publicly accessible website detailing juvenile crime statistics. This isn't just basic data; the site must provide a highly detailed breakdown of arrests by age, race, sex, and crime type (petty vs. violent), along with repeat offender rates and legal outcomes. For instance, the public will be able to see the prosecution declination rate and how many juveniles received misdemeanor versus felony sentences, broken down by sentence length (e.g., 0-3 months, 4-6 months, etc.). The AG must update this data monthly and keep an indefinite archive in a machine-readable format for researchers.

Accessing the Confidential Files

To populate this detailed website, the bill grants the Attorney General specific authority to access records that were previously confidential: juvenile case records and social records from the Family Court, and police files concerning a child. While the bill strictly prohibits the posting of any personally identifiable information, this is a significant expansion of access to sensitive, confidential juvenile records, even if it is strictly for data aggregation purposes. This trade-off between public transparency and juvenile privacy is a key point to watch, especially since the AG must have the site operational within 180 days.

Local Power Lockout: Council’s Hands Tied

Perhaps the most restrictive element of the DC CRIMES Act involves a direct limitation on the local D.C. Council’s legislative authority. Section 4 dictates that the D.C. Council is prohibited from enacting any law, resolution, or rule that would alter any mandatory minimum sentence or any criminal sentencing guideline that was already in place when this Act becomes law. Think of it like this: if the Council wanted to revisit existing sentencing laws based on new data or changing community needs—say, reducing a mandatory minimum sentence for a non-violent offense—they simply can't touch it. Their authority over current sentencing structures is essentially frozen, locking in existing policy and removing flexibility for future local legislative action.