Sponsors (8)
The bill tightens the youth-offender age classification and increases public juvenile data transparency to improve juvenile-program targeting, but it excludes 19–24-year-olds from youth protections, raises privacy and administrative costs, and locks in D.C. sentencing rules that prevent local reform.
Teenagers (ages 15–18 and under 18) will be classified clearly as youth, giving minors clearer access to youth-focused rehabilitative programs, protections, and community-service planning tailored to adolescent needs.
Parents, researchers, and policymakers gain regular, machine-readable juvenile crime statistics (monthly archive) so communities can see trends and design targeted prevention and policy responses.
People living in D.C., defendants, and lawyers keep the sentencing framework that existed at enactment, preventing retroactive increases in penalties and providing predictability for ongoing cases.
People aged 19–24 are removed from the "youth offender" classification and lose eligibility for youth rehabilitative services and protections, creating likely gaps in services and planning for this young-adult cohort.
D.C. is prevented from reducing mandatory minimums or otherwise reforming sentencing policy, limiting local self-governance and likely perpetuating existing incarceration rates and related costs and disparities.
Publishing detailed, machine-readable juvenile statistics with demographic breakdowns (age, race, sex) risks re-identifying juveniles in small subgroups despite PII exclusions, threatening youth privacy.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Narrows D.C.'s "youth offender" age to 18, mandates a public machine-readable juvenile crime data website within 180 days, and bars the D.C. Council from changing existing mandatory minimums or sentencing guidelines.
Official title: Limit youth offender status in the District of Columbia to individuals 18 years of age or younger, to direct the Attorney General for the District of Columbia to establish and operate a publicly accessible website containing updated statistics on juvenile crime in the District of Columbia, to amend the District of Columbia Home Rule Act to prohibit the Council of the District of Columbia from enacting changes to existing criminal liability sentences, and for other purposes.
Introduced September 2, 2025 by James E. Banks · Last progress September 2, 2025
Narrows who counts as a "youth offender" in D.C. law from age 24 to age 18, tightens community service age ranges, requires the D.C. Attorney General to build and maintain a publicly accessible, machine-readable website with monthly-updated juvenile crime statistics (with personal details removed) within 180 days, and bars the D.C. Council from changing any mandatory minimum sentences or sentencing guidelines that exist at enactment. It also makes conforming minor code edits tied to those changes.