But the fact of the matter is that for the Metropolitan Police Department to be successful – first in identifying those young people who are most at-risk of engaging in criminal behavior, and then in intervening with these juveniles – then our Department needs access to basic information about those juveniles who are in the community. The bill before the Committee would address some very serious gaps in the information that is available to the police. It would provide our Department with a carefully selected and limited set of basic, public safety-related data.

Providing the police with access to this data would go a long way toward helping us do a better job of protecting the community and safeguarding at-risk juveniles.  For the fact of the matter is that many of the juveniles who would be impacted by this law are at a high risk of being victimized themselves, and police need more – not less – information if we are to protect them.

The laws governing information about kids in DC’s juvenile justice system are complex, and appropriately so.  Information is classified into law enforcement, court and social records, and there are significant limits to who may access each set.  As I mentioned, the bill would provide the MPD with a limited amount of information on a defined set of juveniles and only under certain conditions, such as their release into the community.  Let me be perfectly clear that the MPD is not interested in accessing psychological, clinical or other information contained in juveniles’ social records.  That information is not germane to our mission of public safety, and we do not view this legislation as some type of “first step” toward eventually gaining access to a broad range of non-public safety data.

What the bill would provide is access to some very useful information that would support our public safety mission. For example, the bill would require the Family Court to disclose certain limited information for non-committed, community-placed respondents who have been arrested three or more times, or who have been arrested at least once for a crime of violence or for unauthorized use of a vehicle.  The records include such information as stay-away orders and conditions of probation or release.