A successful recall occurred in 2012 in the Brightwood community of Ward 4, not too far from where I live, when residents of advisory neighborhood district 4B04 removed Douglas Smith from his elected position as commissioner. According to Ballotpedia, four other successful ANC recalls had occurred (1993, 1999, two in 2003) before the group Concerned Citizens of Brightwood East launched the effort to bring down Smith.
So while unseating two incumbent council members who cruised to reelection only two years ago would seem an uphill climb, remember the recalled ANC commissioners. There’s nothing like a roused citizenry.
Crime — and fear of crime — is the motivating factor behind the recall intent notices aimed at Allen and Nadeau.
At issue is whether voters in Wards 1 and 6 will lay the city’s recent crime surge at the feet of their representatives.
If the driving argument against Allen and Nadeau are council-enacted criminal justice policies that purportedly have contributed to crime upticks, then the net must be cast more widely. Virtually every one of those measures received a unanimous vote.
In her Jan. 30 public safety update for the D.C. Council, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) tried to make the case that there is a correlation between actions by the council and the D.C. attorney general and recent crime surges.
Bowser displayed charts that depict changes to the city’s public safety system since 2012, when homicides, at 88, were low; police force strength, at 3,899 members, was high; prosecution rates were 70 percent; juvenile homicides victims numbered just three; and juvenile arrests for unauthorized use of vehicles and stolen autos totaled 146.
All those numbers have moved in the wrong direction during the intervening 12 years.
And over those years, according to Bowser’s charts, the council enacted legislation limiting disciplinary tools for staff in secure juvenile facilities; the elected D.C. attorney general charged with prosecuting juvenile crimes shifted more young offenders away from court adjudication to community diversion and restorative justice programs; and the council decriminalized Metro fare evasion and limited school disciplinary tools. The mayor also called attention to the council’s expansion of juveniles treated under the Youth Rehabilitation Act to include 24-year-olds, as well as its decision to cut the police budget by $15 million, forcing a hiring freeze and halting the recruitment pipeline.
In addition, Bowser noted, the council voted to eliminate school resource officers — which the school chancellor, principals and many teachers wanted to keep — and diverted funds from police hiring to the elected D.C. attorney general.
Bowser’s charts also marked the city’s spike in gun violence, a 500 percent increase in juvenile homicides, a 2,300 percent increase in juvenile carjacking arrests between 2012 and 2023, and, most strikingly, a consistently downward trend in cases filed since 2013 in the Superior Court’s Social Services Division, where juvenile cases are handled. “What’s happening to those arrested juveniles who aren’t being adjudicated in the system?” was a question one public safety official raised in my presence during a recent meeting with journalists.
And therein lies a problem. Bowser’s review of crime trends and changes in what she dubs the city’s “public safety ecosystem” is essentially a one-way conversation. Missing is the necessary exchange of views, challenges and reaching of consensus among all public leaders on the best way forward to both fight and prevent crime.
City officials are quick to point out that crime trends have been improving in recent months.
Perhaps the prospect of quick arrest and punishment does tend to concentrate the mind wonderfully. But is there more to it than that?
Those questions are being played out in the efforts to recall Allen and Nadeau, at any rate. Do their legislative actions warrant such a rebuke? Wards 1 and 6 voters, presumably more knowledgeable about the totality of their records, are best positioned to decide.
The city, on the other hand, needs to know more about how well criminal conduct is being handled, including the messages being sent to offenders and victims alike.
Recall efforts, notwithstanding.
