Legislation

We urge the D.C. Council to take immediately to address the egregious and inhumane conditions of the D.C. Jail facilities, the complete lack of transparency and accountability demonstrated by the D.C. Department of Corrections (DOC)

"We oppose this bill. As we explain below, we think it is an outrageous attempt to shield potential government misconduct from the legal rules that apply to everyone else."

"District leaders must confront their biases, break the cycle, and use this critical moment to prioritize investment in prevention, community-based violence interruption and trauma services, school-based mental health services, restorative justice, and other effective public safety strategies."

The ACLU-DC hopes the D.C. Council refuses to revert back to failed carceral approaches that have guided the District’s policies for too long. D.C. should strive to be an example to other jurisdictions of what public and community safety in the 21st century can look like.

The ACLU-DC supports the bill’s intent to make MPD’s disciplinary process more meaningful and to expand the role of the Office of Police complaints. But, the language lacks clarity and authority, so this testimony focuses on the accountability and disciplinary systems the bill addresses.

The ACLU-DC speaks before the D.C. Council about decentering police from public safety approaches, which requires significant investments in non-police services and resources and ending reliance on police where they are not effective and create more harm.

The ACLU-DC provides suggestions about Bill 24-213, which prohibits D.C. law enforcement officers from engaging in vehicular pursuits of an individual operating a motor vehicle, and Bill 24-94, which would require the Attorney General to study MPD's biased policing during threat assessment.

ACLU-DC statement emphasizes the importance of centering public health and economic justice rather than traumatic carceral approaches to public safety, as well as the trauma, violence, and ineffectiveness of policing to address societal problems caused by a lack of adequate resources.

ACLU-DC testifies before the D.C. Council Committee key takeaways and recommendations from our analysis of MPD’s 2020 NEAR Act “stop and frisk” data, and our report "Protest During Pandemic: D.C. Police Kettling of Racial Justice Demonstrators on Swann Street."