D.C. leaders should invest more funding in youth and reentry programs in order to help prevent crime, according to a new 24-page report from the American Civil Liberties Union of D.C.
The report, called “Building Safety Through Resources: A Better Path to Public Safety in D.C.,” described a number of citywide programs that could benefit from increased investment. It also recommended one step that the D.C. Council has already taken.
The recommendations come over two months after President Donald Trump’s crime emergency in D.C. ended. However, National Guard troops and federal agents remain patrolling city streets.
The idea, the report said, is to invest heavily in resources and programs known to address crime, instead of using solutions that include boosting law enforcement presence.
“Everybody wants to live in a safe community, but we also know the safest communities are the ones with the most resources, not the most police,” Alicia Yass, supervising policy council at the ACLU of D.C. said. “To keep communities safe, we need to invest in solutions that are addressing the root cause of public safety issues, and not just investing in policing and punishment, because that’s not going to have the desired effect.”
D.C. has already taken steps toward launching a local version of the child tax credit, one of the report’s overarching ideas. But it also proposed increasing funding for the city’s child care subsidy program, so more families can benefit from the aid.
WTOP has contacted Council Chairman Phil Mendelson for comment on the report’s recommendations.
For one, initiatives such as the D.C. Library Teen Council program, which offers leadership opportunities to young people, are effective, but Yass called it a “small program.”
“It can only serve so many teens,” Yass said. “What could a program like that do if it had more funding and was able to grow and be bigger?”
Programs that support reentry could benefit from increased funding too, Yass said.
The Free Minds Book Club and Writing Workshop is one of several that helps with mentoring and job training and placement, but Yass said it similarly “cannot serve every person who was returning to the District from reentry.”
“If it was given more resources and could be expanded, and more people could gain the benefits of those programs, that would better serve our community as a whole,” Yass said.
A small initiative run through the Office of the Attorney General, Yass said, does restorative justice, allowing young people to “learn from the mistakes they’ve made, rather than to merely be punished.”
“There are programs in existence that are trying to make things better and not merely punish people,” Yass said. “We want our communities to thrive, and these types of programs are helping that happen.”
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