D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser is hinting that she will soon introduce legislation that would keep more people charged with violent crimes behind bars pending trial, which she said would address concerns that people with histories of violence are too easily allowed back into the community and could be contributing to the spike in certain crimes in the city.

Bowser’s announcement came during a four-hour-long Public Safety Summit she hosted Wednesday. She touted the event as an opportunity for dozens of law enforcement and public safety agencies, civic organizations, and business groups to put their heads together and engage in “critical introspection about what is working and what is not working and what needs to change” to address the increase in certain crimes like homicide, carjackings, and gun-related offenses in recent years. (Earlier this year she hosted a similar summit with Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners.)

One possible solution, Bowser said, would be to change the existing D.C. law that largely allows people charged with crimes to be released pending their trial, with the exception of cases where someone is proven to be a flight risk or danger to the community.  “We have a lot of instances right now of people who have been arrested for a violent crime like homicide who haven’t been detained,” she said. “And we think the expectation in the community is that if you’re convicted of a violent crime and you commit another one that you should be detained.”

According to the Pretrial Services Agency, in 2022 85% of all people charged with crimes in D.C. were released pending their trials — including 60% of those charged with felonies. PSA data shows that in the same year some 1% of those released pending trial for violent crimes were rearrested. In recent months Bowser and Police Chief Robert Contee have argued that people who are charged with homicide have often been arrested up to 11 times before, though not always charged.

Bowser did not offer more details about her proposal, which is likely to be included in a draft bill she is expected to present to the D.C. Council as early as this week to address what city officials say are gaps in the law that may be helping fuel increases in certain crimes. And it’s unclear how the idea will be received by lawmakers and progressive activists; a 2022 study found that pretrial detention can in some cases increase the chances that a person will commit further crimes.

But Bowser and Contee said the change would only apply to a small number of people who are arrested and charged with violent crimes, and Councilmember Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2), who chairs the council’s judiciary committee, said she agrees the city’s current law — which dates back to 1992 — needs to be revisited.

“There’s a strong presumption of not holding someone pretrial. That is a good thing generally. We believe in this country that you are innocent until proven guilty,” she said. “But we need to be empowering our judges to have some more judicial discretion for cases where there are multiple arrests, where there are clear dangers present to the community.”

Another note of support for the idea came from U.S. Attorney for D.C. Matthew Graves, who also said he backs Bowser’s call for more police officers in the city. There are currently just under 3,400 officers in the Metropolitan Police Department, down from roughly 3,800 two years ago. D.C. is currently offering up to $25,000 in hiring bonuses, but like many departments across the region, the city is still having trouble hiring enough officers to keep up with those leaving.

But longstanding tensions between Graves’ office — which prosecutes almost all violent crime in the city — and D.C. officials were also evident during Wednesday’s summit. Recent data has shown that the U.S. Attorney has declined to prosecute 67% of cases brought by D.C. police, though Graves has said that prosecution rates for homicides and gun-related offenses are much higher. Speaking at the summit, he said that his office took every case where prosecutors felt the case met constitutional standards — and that lowering those standards isn’t an option.

“We will charge every felony we think we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt, full stop. It is not a choice not to prosecute a case if we think there isn’t probable cause,” he said. “We would never charge someone if we think it would violate our constitutional obligations to do so.”

He also said some cases, including many misdemeanor drug cases, could not be prosecuted because of the ongoing issues at the D.C. Department of Forensic Sciences, which lost its accreditation in 2021 and may not regain it until next year. But Bowser pointedly retorted that the federal government could use its significant resources to use outside labs.

There was little in the way of solutions offered to close the gaps between the cases D.C. brings and the ones the U.S. Attorney decides to prosecute, though Bowser later said that she thinks the recent revelations and pressure on Graves’ office is having an impact.

“I actually think that the light of day on all parts of the ecosystem is working,” she said. “I opened up The Washington Post and I’m reading about cases that are advancing and I see a difference. And I think people asking questions, demonstrating the impacts that the crime is having on them personally and on their communities and on the city as a whole, I think all of those things are helpful.”

Graves also said that his office would start releasing monthly data on prosecutions, addressing a longstanding complaint from some community activists who say that the city’s main prosecutorial agency is opaque and unwilling to share information.

During other portions of the summit, attendees reviewed crime data, observed a mock crime briefing similar to those Contee conducts everyday with his top commanders, and debated what can be done to better address adult and juvenile crime. Early in the day, Wendy Glenn, the Ward 8 representative of Bowser’s Office of Community Relations and Services, offered personal testimony of the impact crime was having on her community and those around it.

“Crime is up everywhere in Ward 8, and we want people to understand the trauma we deal with every day. We as a community focus on it every day, 24 hours a day,” she said.

While some attendees focused on increasing the number of police officers or better targeting certain parts of the city for law enforcement, others said the uptick in certain types of crime is based on broader social conditions. “We’ve got a housing crisis. Most of these young people are homeless, and when they’re homeless they feel helpless,” said Councilmember Trayon White (D-Ward 8).

And Graves and Contee both addressed the realities and perceptions of crime, and how those often do not match up. Contee noted that in 2015 there were 6,000 violent crimes in D.C., while last year there were some 4,000. At the same time, gun-related offenses and gun seizures have spiked, fueling public concerns about crime. Attorney General Brian Schwalb noted that there’s been an increased fear of juvenile crime, even though the number of kids involved in crimes is a tiny fraction of their overall population in the city.

Graves said that part of the problem is social media, where individual incidents can attract attention and generate feelings of unease. “One of the problems we’re seeing is with unfiltered new media… is that it lacks context,” he said. “It is not accurate to say that violent crime is at a historic high. We have to accurately name our problems so we can identify solutions.”