Washington, D.C. is in the middle of a carjacking crime wave. There have been more than one hundred carjackings in our nation’s capital so far this year—it’s only March eighth! That’s more than one a day. Two-thirds of D.C. carjackers used guns to force their terrified victims out of their vehicles.
So, what did D.C. Democrats do in response to this carjacking crime wave? Did they support and fund the police? Did they install more cameras and put more cops on the streets? No, they passed a law to reduce criminal penalties for carjacking. Reduce criminal penalties for carjacking and other, serious crimes.
I wish I were joking, but sadly I’m not. Washington’s answer to higher crime is less prison time for violent criminals. The only reason this is not going to happen is because Congress retains its constitutional authority over our federal city. Because Washington is not a state, nor should it ever be a state.
But in this case, even some Democrats—even President Biden—got skittish about the political price they’d pay for being this weak on crime. So they broke ranks and headed for the hills.
When House Republicans voted to disapprove D.C.’s soft-on-crime bill, 31 Democrats voted with them. I suspect something similar will play out later here today. President Biden says he’ll sign the resolution of disapproval once it passes, because, and these are his words, “I don’t support some of the changes the D.C. Council put forward over the Mayor’s objections – such as lowering penalties for carjackings.” Those are the president’s words.
So, I welcome these Democrats’ rebuke of the D.C. City Council. I hope it’s more than a passing moment of sanity, but I do have my doubts. So let’s put their new “tough on crime” attitude to the test.
It’s really not enough to stop carjackings just here in Washington, D.C., because carjacking isn’t a Washington, D.C. problem alone. Many cities are suffering from carjacking crime waves as well, just as they’re suffering from increases in the murder rate and other terrible crimes. According to a recent report, carjackings rose an astonishing 29% in seven major cities between 2020 and 2022.
Why the increase? Well, one reason is the First Step Act, a soft-on-crime bill that Congress passed in the final days of 2018. That bill let criminals out of jail early for even serious violent offenses like child molestation, bank robbery, assaulting a police officer—and yes, carjacking. Now, the First Step Act wasn’t the only effort to coddle violent criminals, but it is an egregious law that made clear too many of our elected officials no longer takes serious crime seriously.
The First Step Act increased by about 15 percent the amount of time that federal criminals—even carjackers—can get off of their sentences for so-called “good behavior.” This was in addition to the extensive sentencing reductions and early release programs for other crimes in the bill. The result was that, if a carjacker got, say, six years in prison, he could be back out on the street to offend again in as few as five years.
It’s time to rectify this mistake and keep carjackers behind bars.
That’s why I’m offering my bill, the No Early Release for Carjackers Act.
The bill is as simple as its title: if you go to jail for violently hijacking someone’s car, you should serve your entire sentence—not get time off for supposed good behavior.
So if President Biden and Congressional Democrats are really committed to getting tough on carjackers—not just in D.C., where they drive around a lot—then they should support this effort.
Now I know that defenders of the First Step Act will say that carjackers should get out of jail early for good behavior. These criminals will get out of jail one day, or so the argument goes, so shouldn’t we rehabilitate them by rewarding them and encouraging their good behavior?
To which I answer, sure, we can reward good behavior for carjackers in prison, we can encourage good behavior—but we shouldn’t reward it in a way that endangers the public. And letting dangerous criminals out of jail early endangers the public.
If the members of this Senate are truly concerned with “rewarding good behavior,” we can offer well-behaved inmates other incentives, say greater access to prison telephones or transfers to lower-security facilities. And carjackers will remain eligible for other incentive programs that are so beloved by the “soft-on-crime” set, like gardening classes or whatever else it is that liberals think will turn supposedly hardened criminals into model citizens. But there’s simply no good reason to release dangerous criminals from prison early—especially not in the middle of a violent carjacking crime wave.
Crime is a policy choice, and the choice is simple. If we put criminals behind bars, crime goes down. If we let criminals run amok, crime goes up.
We’ve seen the consequences of letting carjackers run amok. Now we have a choice to fix that terrible mistake.
