WASHINGTON — A day before a massive legislative crime bill package is set for a final vote, the Office of the District of Columbia Auditor released a scathing report summarizing a series of audits regarding crime in D.C.
DC Council is poised to vote on the massive public safety bill Tuesday. The legislation dubbed "Secure DC Omnibus Amendment Act of 2024," proposed by Councilmember Brooke Pinto who chairs the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, takes from 12 bills prompted after a spike in violence in 2023.
The ODCA report says the bill will address crime and the public's fear of crime, based on a surge in juvenile car thefts and stubborn statistics on homicides rising in D.C. while dropping in most other major cities.
"But what do we actually know?" the audit asks. "Who is doing what, and who has done what, that is relevant to crime and the fear of crime in the District of Columbia? In the last four years, the Office of the D.C. Auditor has published comprehensive reports with findings and recommendations touching many of the alphabet soup of agencies in the District’s criminal justice 'ecosystem.'"
ODCA detailed what those four years of reports revealed, in its own report titled, "Straight Talk from the D.C. Auditor."
"In summary, though, here is what our recent work says: agencies whose purpose includes preventing and solving crime and mitigating the effects of crime are not performing as they should to have maximum impact on crime reduction."
The report is broken up into six sections:
- Solving and fighting crime
- Investigating and prosecuting crime
- Dispatching timely emergency help
- Interrupting the cycle of violent crime
- Prosecuting use-of-force by MPD
- Expanding contributions to crime prevention
In the first section, ODCA says the failure to quickly and collaboratively restore the Department of Forensic Sciences (DFS) to full performance has limited the availability of sworn members of the MPD to perform patrol and investigative functions.
D.C.'s Department of Forensic Services (DCDFS) has been without accreditation for years. In October 2023, Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau announced that the crime lab could be reaccredited in January 2024, a time that came and passed without the accreditation.
The crime lab's lack of accreditation has been a serious challenge to prosecuting crimes in the District. In October, Nadeau claimed only 67% of cases had been prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office.
"The forensic lab’s loss of accreditation that has severely hampered the investigation and prosecution of crime was a result of administrative, supervisory and oversight failures across the criminal justice ecosystem," the report reads.
In the report, ODCA said the DFS Crime Scene Sciences Division (CSSD) used statutory authority to rehire retired police officers on a transitional basis but has not met the longer-term goal of fully staffing CSSD with civilian forensic scientists.
"That has meant that active-duty Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officers continue to help operate CSSD, contrary to a longstanding goal of civilianizing the division so officers can return to other police duties," the report reads. "We repeated those findings in written testimony for the confirmation hearing of MPD Chief Pamela Smith on September 23, 2023: the Bowser Administration’s original plan was to have DFS assume full control of crime scene response by FY 2018, a goal still not reached."
When their original audit began, ODCA said 24 active-duty MPD officers were assigned to crime scene responses, a number that later dropped to seven as a limited staff remained a pressure on MPD resources.
The shortages led to a longer response to crime scenes by DFS, meaning evidence can be lost or contaminated. ODCA says the crime scene reports that detectives need to investigate and prosecute may also be delayed and MPD officers are forced to "hold the scene" until DFS arrives. While waiting for DFS, responding officers are delayed in returning to patrol, just as detectives are kept from pursuing the investigation.
The ODCA report further adds that a previous audit into the DC Forensic Lab found "a persistent lack of resources for DFS compounded by regulations written by the Bowser Administration and approved by the Council that gave agency management and not the Science Advisory Board the effective final say in oversight which was contrary to the original goal of independence."
The agency claims other criminal justice partners, such as the D.C. Attorney General, failed to use the oversight board to address legitimate concerns, turning instead to their own external auditors to expose problems rather than working in collaboration with the Bowser administration. ODCA says once the board was weakened, the Bowser administration failed to step up, recruit or hire an experienced new director or empower the Science Advisory Board.
"As a result, largely of inaction, the District’s forensics lab has lacked full accreditation for the last three years, severely hampering forensic testing needed to prosecute crimes," the report reads.
However, DFS is not the only agency ODCA aims at in the scathing report, later turning its attention to the Office of Unified Communications (OUC).
"The Mayor’s refusal to acknowledge failures of the District’s 911 system seriously delayed recruiting and hiring so shifts at the Office of Unified Communications (OUC) could be fully staffed and all calls answered according to national standards," the report reads.
The OUC has faced sharp criticism over sending emergency crews to the wrong addresses and dropped calls, among other things. In April 2023, first responders were sent to the wrong address when a car crashed into the Anacostia River. That delayed them at least 16 minutes. Three people in the car died.
In July 2022, a 1-year-old girl died as her parents waited for help after the 911 dispatcher who took the call at 2:26 a.m. recorded the address incorrectly in the system. The address was corrected at 2:34 a.m. in the notes section, but the dispatcher did not update the location field in the dispatch system, causing first responders to go to the wrong address.
First responders were eventually able to find the correct address and arrived to help around 2:37 a.m., more than 10 minutes after the 911 call was first received.
A 2021 report reviewed the OUC 911 system against national standards. The audit found OUC did not meet national standards in getting timely help to callers needing emergency medical help. To address the delays and errors, ODCA says the agency recommended major increases in staffing and supervision including increasing the total number of OUC shift supervisors from 11 to 38. The agency has tracked these recommendations since October 2021. It wasn't until two years later that any significant increases to staffing were made.
"Progress has been made in recent months and in January 2024, 17 shifts out of 66 were reported as not fully staffed—an improvement over the previous six months," the report reads. "While that is an improvement it’s still too large a number more than two years after ODCA’s audit was published."
While the ODCA was critical of the lack of improvement, the report did say one agency was seeing success. In a report, the ODCA found that the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement’s (ONSE) Pathways Program has been reaching the target group of community members, those at risk of being victims or perpetrators of violence.
However, the agency then added that it also found ONSE was not effectively tracking and reporting on post-program employment and victimization data to assist in ensuring that the program is having the intended impact.
"The District has multiple efforts underway to interrupt violence but agencies are not measuring those efforts in a meaningful way to know what is working, what can be improved, and how," the audit reads. While ODCA reports note failures to refine promising programs, new initiatives have been launched."
ONSE is not the only agency lacking in tracking, ODCA says the Hospital-based Violence Intervention Program (HVIP) is also not collecting and assessing data to know its effect or improve services to enhance the impact.
However, HVIP reportedly responded to the tracking recommendation saying the agency does not have the capacity to collect that information.
DC Council is set to vote on the bill Tuesday.
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