Harriet's Wildest Dreams is proud to support the “Revised Criminal Code Act of 2021 (RCCA)” (B24-0416). This legislation will revise the elements of the code that establish crimes, defenses, and exceptions to liability. The RCCA provides for greater transparency, and fairness in District criminal laws. If adopted, the legislation would be the first comprehensive revision of the District’s criminal code since Congress created it in 1901.

As Abolitionists, we support legislation that decreases the power and scope of the carceral state in the lives of Black people. Comprehensive reform of these laws is urgently needed. The structure and drafting of the District’s current criminal offenses stand in sharp contrast to most other U.S. jurisdictions. Most states comprehensively restructured and redrafted their criminal statutes in the mid-to-late-20th century following the issuance of the Model Penal Code (MPC) by the American Law Institute in 1962. The District is among the minority of jurisdictions that did not update their code at that time. Despite ongoing efforts by the Council, piecemeal legislative amendments have been unable to fix pervasive, structural problems with the D.C. Code. An academic review of state criminal codes using objective factors like clarity, consistency, and completeness ranked the District near the bottom—45th of 52 jurisdictions.

Among the significant changes to District law in the RCCA are:

·         Elimination of all District mandatory minimum penalties;
·         Replacement of indefinite “life” and “life without release” maximum penalties with sentences set at a determinate number of years;
·         Extension to all convicted persons, regardless of their age at the time of the offense, of judicial review after serving at least 15 years imprisonment;
·         Elimination of juvenile delinquency for children 11 and under in favor of other civil services by District agencies;
·         Expansion of the right to a jury trial for all crimes carrying jail or prison time;
·         Decriminalization of conduct such as panhandling, playing games in streets, possession of a self-defense spray, certain forms of illegal vending, and possessing an open container of alcohol outside a vehicle; and
·         Definition of the mental states, if any, that must be proven for each element of each offense.