In a heated public meeting, federal prosecutors and D.C. police officials on Thursday evening argued against a bill that would give certain violent offenders the chance to petition a judge for early release from prison. Speaking to a crowd of neighborhood leaders and civic officials, they called the measure a threat to public safety and said it would re-traumatize victims of violent crime.

The meeting between U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jessie Liu, Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners, and members of local civic associations focused on the Second Look Act, introduced in the D.C. Council earlier this year. If passed, the bill would allow offenders who committed violent crimes before their 25th birthday and have served 15 years of their sentence to ask a judge for a sentence reduction.

The legislation would raise the age for reconsidering an offender’s sentence from the current law known as the Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act, or IRAA, which affords that opportunity only to offenders who committed a crime before they turned 18.

Proponents say the IRAA and the Second Look Act respond to a growing body of research showing that young adults don’t have the same capacity to control their impulses and steer clear of crime and conflict, and should not be sentenced in the same way as adults. They also say it would serve to chip away at a legacy of mass incarceration and long prison sentence—largely impacting black men.

But Liu, who was appointed to the post by President Trump in 2017, has been unusually outspoken in her opposition to the bill, issuing a strongly-worded press release against it and directly engaging with neighborhood officials and civic leaders to oppose it. She spoke to WAMU about the bill last month.

She was joined on Thursday by D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham, who expressed his disagreement with the bill in no uncertain terms. Newsham, who has faced a spike in homicides over the last two years, methodically worked his way through a Power Point presentation showing the victims of notorious violent crimes in recent years—10-year-old Makiyah Wilson, 14-year-old Princess Hansen, 17-year-old Jamahri Sydnor, 27-year-old Margery Magill, 43-year-old Robert Foster, Jr.—saying their killers could become eligible for early release if the measure becomes law.

‘Re-victimization’

Newsham said that cutting sentences short—especially for violent crimes—could impact surviving family members who expected the sentences handed down by judges to be served in full.

“I can’t imagine how the family would feel if the carpet was pulled out from under their feet on an agreement that was made with them,” he said, referring to the case of 24-year-old Kevin Sutherland, who was stabbed to death aboard a Red Line Metro train in 2015. His killer, Jasper Spires, 18 years old at the time, was sentenced to 35 years in prison. Under the Second Look Act, he’d be able to petition for early release in 2033.

John Hill, a prosecutor in Liu’s office, said the bill would greatly expand the number of violent offenders eligible for a sentence reduction, and raise the risk that some of those would commit crimes again upon being released. He said a study by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons of 401 D.C. offenders released from prison between 2009 and 2015 found a recidivism rate of 35 percent. (Criminal-justice reform advocates say many of those who were rearrested committed parole violations, not violent crimes.) Hill said they generally support sentence-reduction efforts—but for non-violent drug offenders.

Proponents of the Second Look Act say that under IRAA, 18 people have been released from prison since 2017—and none have reoffended. But Hill argued that that law is too new, and that more time should be allowed to pass before it’s expanded to determine the impact on recidivism rates.

But the most passionate and wrenching portion of the meeting focused on the victims of violent crime, and what prosecutors say is the high likelihood that they will feel re-victimized if they learn the prison sentence of their perpetrator could be cut short.

“What happens in this process … is the reactivation of trauma,” said Sarah McClennan, the chief of the Victim Witness Assistance Unit in the U.S. Attorney’s office. “It’s as if [the crime] was happening again on that same day.”

Alvin Bethea’s transgender son was murdered in 2012, and he said at the meeting his family was still dealing with the trauma of the experience. “It just never goes away,” he said, urging Liu to tell the bill’s sponsor, Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen, to drop the bill. “You’ve got to tell him, ‘You’re wrong. Stay in your lane, young man.’”

‘Scare Tactics’

But a small number of supporters of the Second Look Act who got into the meeting said the officials’ presentations were excessively one-sided, and likely aimed at scaring crime-wary neighborhood leaders into opposing the bill. They generally sat quietly during the meeting, but challenged prosecutors when they said that D.C. has the lowest incarceration rate of any of the states. The supporters of the bill said the opposite was actually true, and that D.C.’s incarceration rate exceeds national and international averages. (A spokeswoman for Liu said after the meeting they would review the numbers they used for possible undercounting, and indeed acknowledged to an advocate on Friday that their data were flawed.)

“The information wasn’t accurate,” said Marc Schindler, executive director of the Justice Policy Institute, which supports sentencing reform. “They said this wasn’t about fear-mongering. I’ve never been to a meeting with public officials like this where there was that level of scare tactics.”

Schindler also said that the issue of how victims feel about sentencing and early releases is more complex than what the U.S. Attorney’s office was presenting.

“Are they aware there are victims that have testified in support of IRAA petitions? I think there is a misimpression here trying to paint victims in one way,” he said. “There are clearly victims who oppose this. But it’s disingenuous when you know there are people who are forgiving to not share that as well.”

While some ANC commissioners and civic association leaders nodded along in support as Newsham and prosecutors spoke against the bill, others pushed back. Ward 5 ANC commissioner Robert Vinson Brannum said that even as Liu’s office is opposing sentence reductions for young offenders, it has backed a sentence reduction for notorious drug kingpin Rayful Edmonds. He also said that when the Council held a lengthy hearing on the bill in the fall, most of the 200 witnesses spoke in favor.

“Your neighbors testified in support of this legislation,” he told the crowd.

And Ward 8 ANC commissioner Charles Wilson voiced concern about the U.S. Attorney’s office—which is part of the federal government, but prosecutes all violent crime in the city—weighing in so heavily against a local bill.

“We as citizens should not be so overly influenced by outsiders,” he said. “We should not be driven into this state of fear. We need to let this process take its course.”

Bill In Limbo

For now, that process is stalled. Allen has said no further action on the bill is scheduled for the fall. Mayor Muriel Bowser initially supported the bill but now says it needs more work. D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine, on the other hand, says he supports the bill as written.

Advocates who could not make it into the meeting gathered outside Liu’s office on Thursday night, arguing for the bill’s passage into law. Among them was Tyrone Walker, who was sent to prison for murder at age 19 and released 24 years after his sentence was reduced. He says he was rehabilitated, and thinks many others could be as well, and they should be given another chance to build productive lives outside of prison.

“People like me who are coming home don’t want that experience again,” he said of being in prison. “I’ve learned my lesson from that. I’m sorry for what I’ve done. And I need to move on with my life.”

But Ward 4 ANC commissioner Patience Singleton disagreed, telling another advocate for the bill that convicted criminals should serve their entire sentence.

“You should be in prison for your time,” she said. “Stop thinking about the criminals. Think about the victims.”

This story first appeared on WAMU.