Update: The D.C. Council unanimously passed three criminal justice reform bills — which included a package of police reforms, a bill to strengthen oversight of the D.C. Jail, and a bill that expands and streamlines the process for getting criminal records sealed or expunged — in its final legislative meeting of 2022.

Some pieces of the legislation were tweaked with amendments before final passage. For example, councilmembers made several amendments to the criminal record sealing bill at the request of prosecutors and advocates, including a change that streamlined the court process for handling requests by imposing a deadline for decisions.

The amendments also included additional sex offenses for which record sealing would be ineligible. Ultimately, the final bill represented a compromise between the requests of prosecutors, the courts, and advocates — who all took issue with pieces of the bill. Advocates, for example, pushed in the days leading up to the bill’s final passage for it to offer expanded opportunities for expungement over sealing, along with broader eligibility, requests that did not come to fruition.

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The D.C. Council unanimously approved a group of criminal justice reforms that would make police disciplinary records publicly available, strengthen oversight of the D.C. Jail, and expand people’s opportunities to get their criminal records sealed or expunged.

The votes came during a marathon legislative session on Tuesday night. They will be brought before the council for a second vote later this month, and then – if approved – go to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s desk for her signature. They’ll then move to Congress for its review — a consequence of the District’s lack of statehood.

The bills, particularly the police reform package, mark the conclusion of a two-year process that began in the summer of 2020, when the council passed a series of emergency police reforms in response to widespread protests against police violence. In addition to making permanent those emergency reforms — which include requiring the public release of body camera footage after police shootings or use of force incidents, limiting the use of tear gas, and prohibiting neck restraints — the final package also adds additional provisions that councilmembers say are designed to increase police accountability.

They include a provision that requires D.C. to create a database of police disciplinary files and make those files eligible for open-records requests (except when the allegations against the officer were not sustained). The database, which the bill schedules to launch on December 31, 2024, would transform the public’s ability to easily see which officers have been disciplined for misconduct. Residents and advocates have criticized D.C.’s process of police discipline for being opaque and routinely allowing officers found guilty of crimes or misconduct to remain on – or return to – the force, while the D.C. police chief has said the public release of disciplinary files would be an unwarranted invasion of officer privacy.

Before the vote on the police reform package, At-Large Councilmember Robert White called the bill “incredibly important.”

“It doesn’t detract from public safety – it makes us safer. And it increases trust between our residents and our police department, who serve a very vital role,” White said.

All eleven councilmembers present for the vote voted yes; the remaining two – Ward 7 Councilmember Vincent Gray and Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto – were absent during the vote on the bill.

Many of the police reforms in the bill have received pushback from the police union. In an emailed statement Wednesday, D.C. police union chairman Gregg Pemberton called it “mind boggling” that the council passed the reforms.

“We are about to have our third year in a row of 200-plus homicides, robberies and carjackings are out of control, and the Council seems laser focused on driving good officers out of the department,” wrote Pemberton. “We can only hope that the Mayor vetoes this misguided legislation.”

On the other hand, advocates have urged the council to expand the package of reforms, arguing that they don’t go far enough. Groups like the Washington Lawyers’ Committee and DC Justice Lab, which drafted model legislation and routinely advocate for criminal justice reform before the council, wanted to see stricter protections for youth in police interrogations; the release of more body camera footage from police; and an end to qualified immunity protections for officers who commit wrongdoing. Those recommendations did not make it into the reform package the council approved on Tuesday — though councilmembers could still (and often do) submit amendments to the bill before the second and final council vote, which is scheduled for later this month.

Beverly Smith, an advocate whose son Alonzo Smith was killed by special police officers in 2015, said she was upset to see her son’s name cited in committee documents for the police reform bill, even though it does not explicitly prohibit the compression of the torso tactic that special police used on her son. In an interview, Smith told DCist/WAMU she wanted to see the legislation go farther to curtail the powers of special police officers.

“Just citing my son’s case is irrelevant, particularly when you haven’t put any policies in place as far as the method and the tactic that was used that resulted in my son’s death,” Smith says. “There is nothing in the police reform bill to prevent that from happening to anyone else.”

In addition to the police reform package, the council advanced two more significant criminal justice reform bills. One of them expands the number of people eligible to get their criminal records sealed or expunged, and makes the process easier to navigate. Approximately one in eight adult residents of the District has had a criminal conviction, according to the Council for Court Excellence — and many others have been arrested or charged with crimes but not ultimately convicted. The legislation, if it makes it through final passage, has the potential to affect a large portion of the city’s residents.

And the council also unanimously approved a series of reforms to the D.C. Department of Corrections, which runs the troubled D.C. Jail, the adjacent Correctional Treatment Facility, and the Central Cell Block where people are detained as prosecutors decide whether to charge them with a crime. The legislation requires more regular and thorough reporting from the Corrections Information Council, which is charged with independent oversight of conditions in the jail and other facilities housing D.C. residents. It also requires DOC to be more transparent about deaths in its facilities — a direct response to a series of deaths in the D.C. Jail this year, most of which DOC did not proactively disclose to the public.

All three criminal justice reform packages need an additional council vote before they can go to Bowser’s desk. The full council is scheduled to meet next on December 20 to conduct its final votes on legislation for the year. That is a hard deadline — any bills that aren’t passed in that final meeting will have to be reintroduced next legislative session and start the process of becoming a law back from the beginning.

Previously:The D.C. Council Is Voting On A Slew Of Criminal Justice Reform Bills. Here’s What’s In Them