Incarceration

I support:

  • Bringing the DC jail back into city control
  • Ending federal involvement in the administration of probation
  • A ‘ban the box’ measure ending criminal record reporting requirements in job applications
  • Promoting restorative justice and community service sentences

To be clear, I do not believe the city should go soft on crime. I would work to strengthen DC’s laws against aggressive panhandling and other forms of harassment. However, I generally believe that some form restorative justice should exist alongside punitive criminal sanctions and would propose laws to make the city’s criminal code reflect that. I would propose a law to make community service sentences the first port-of-call for petty crimes, at least on first offense, rather than incarceration. Though I do not support complete prison abolition, I do support an end to privatized prisons and the prison industrial complex more broadly.

The DC jail has been controlled by the federal government for many years now, and it has been proven to be a completely failure. I support bringing it back into city control as soon as possible. The federal government’s handling of parole has likewise been an utter disaster. If elected I would argue strongly for bringing the responsivity for parole back into city control.