Wilson Building Bulletin: As summer sets in, the D.C. Council moves to permanently expand pretrial detention

It was amidst a deadly spike in violent crime in 2023 that the D.C. Council passed an emergency bill that made it easier to keep people accused of committing violent crimes in jail as they await trial. There was a catch, though – lawmakers required that a study be conducted on whether expanding pretrial detention actually makes a difference on public safety, with the expectation that actual data would help them decide whether to make the expansion permanent or not.

Well, the data is in – and it’s somewhat inconclusive. Still, on Tuesday, the council moved ahead with an initial vote to make the expansion of pretrial detention permanent, even as some lawmakers expressed concern that they were largely flying blind on a criminal justice policy change that would disproportionately impact Black residents.

The debate came amidst consideration of Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto’s PEACE D.C. public safety bill, which she introduced this spring as a follow-up to her Secure D.C. crime bill the council passed in March 2024. While there were a variety of components to Pinto’s newer bill, much of the discussion this week centered on the expanded pretrial detention, which was set to expire in mid-July if the council didn’t act.

“The police think it’s a very helpful tool,” Pinto told reporters about expanded pretrial detention, which shifts the burden onto suspects of violent crimes to prove that they can safely be released from jail before they stand trial. (Under the prior system, judges had to determine that keeping the person in jail was the only credible way to keep the community safe and ensure the defendant shows up for trial.) 

Pinto also said she fine-tuned the bill to focus only on the most violent offenses, including removing robbery when no injuries occur and second-degree burglary (when a home is broken into but the owner isn’t around, for example) from the offenses that would qualify for expanded pretrial detention. 

Bowser expressed strong support for Pinto’s bill, writing to lawmakers that expanded pretrial detention has been “critical in helping reduce violent crime in the District.”

“In 2024, we reduced violent crime by 35 percent and, so far this year, we have reduced violent

crime by a further 22 percent. As of June 16, 2025, violent crime in the District is 43% lower than at the same time in 2023 – before the emergency version of the bill was enacted. Holding violent criminals accountable for their actions is having a clear impact in making our city safer and this legislation will allow us to continue making use of this critical tool,” she wrote.

But how clear is that impact, really? It’s tough to say. In May, the council-commissioned study by the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council offered few strong conclusions and noted that it wasn’t able to determine if expanded pretrial detention had made D.C. safer. (It also only looked at adult arrests, not those involving juveniles.) Like Bowser, Pinto argued correlation; after the council first expanded pretrial detention in the summer of 2023, she said crime rates decreased somewhat. But that wasn’t enough for some of her colleagues.

“The reality is that there really doesn't appear to be any evidence that the pretrial detention component is making the city safer. That’s the issue I have. I can’t tell you that it’s making us less safe either,” said At-Large Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie. “But my core is to bend the moral arc towards justice, and to me the pretrial detention component … does the opposite.”

At-Large Councilmember Robert White and Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George also pointed to an assessment conducted by the Council Office of Racial Equity,which found that expanded pretrial detention “will exacerbate the harmful consequences of detention and imprisonment for Black residents — particularly around community safety, health outcomes, and wellbeing outcomes. Importantly, this provision will have an outsized impact on Black residents.”

“What frustrates me is there are things that we know most of us would not debate. We know that people of color, Black people, are not born more criminal, and we know that many more Black people are in jail,” said White. “We always seem to have time and resources to address how to get folks in jail more quickly, but we've never seemed to prioritize the more difficult things I'm saying: Why are there more Black people in jail and what do we need to do to get underneath that? Instead, we keep adding on to this very broken system that is increasingly pushing people of color into incarceration and doing it not with the data, but with these notions of what is going to help even when there's no data to support so.”

Despite those concerns, Pinto’s bill passed on a first vote, with only White and Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau voting against it. (McDuffie and Lewis George voted “present,” which is neither yes nor no.) It will get a second and final vote in July.

Bowser proposes expanded youth curfew

Back over Memorial Day weekend, The Wharf made one thing clear: Teenagers weren’t really wanted around. In response to complaints of marauding groups of juveniles the week prior, the waterfront destination imposed a tight three-day curfew prohibiting anyone under the age of 18 from being there after 5 p.m. without a parent or guardian in tow.

That type of curfew may well become much more common across D.C. this summer. This week, Mayor Muriel Bowser introduced an emergency bill to tighten up the city’s existing youth curfew, largely over growing concerns of teenagers gathering in large numbers in nightlife hotspots and causing trouble. (Navy Yard and U Street have been recent targets.) Her bill brings the curfew back an hour (to 11 p.m., from the current midnight), and extends it to anyone under the age of 18 (the curfew now applies only to kids under 17). 

But her proposal also includes a novel twist: designated curfew zones that can move across D.C. where kids aren’t welcome even earlier into the evening. As laid out in her bill, D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith would be empowered to designate the new juvenile curfew zones for 15-day stretches at a time, where any group of more than three kids under the age of 18 wouldn’t be allowed to gather after 7 p.m. Sound familiar? The idea is based off  D.C.'s drug-free zones, which were created last year as part of a push by Bowser to give police more tools to crack down on crime.

Bowser’s bill would also grant her the power to extend the overall juvenile curfew for 30 days at a time, requiring that anyone under the age of 18 be home from 7 p.m. until 6 a.m. 

D.C.’s juvenile curfew law has been on the books since the mid-1990s, though its application and enforcement has ebbed and flowed depending on real or perceived public safety risks. In the past few years, city officials have tested new approaches to enforcing the existing curfew in response to a rise in juvenile crime; two summers ago, police ramped up enforcement in eight neighborhoods. Similar attempts have been on display in Prince George’s County, where last year an extended youth curfew was imposed at National Harbor, another popular gathering location for kids. 

Research has generally shown that youth curfews don’t have a significant impact on public safety, and youth have often said that curfews are less useful than other proactive measures like additional programming for kids during the summer months – including during evening hours. To that end, this month, the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation launched an expanded series of Late-Night Hype events for youth. 

A vote on Bowser’s emergency curfew bill is expected on July 1.