Juvenile Section
OAG has jurisdiction to prosecute juvenile crime that occurs in the District. Specifically, our Juvenile Section prosecutes young people under age 18 for delinquency offenses. Our Juvenile Specialty Courts Unit handles cases involving offenses that can only be committed by a juvenile—truancy, runaway cases, or curfew violations. These are called Person in Need of Supervision (PINS) cases. Our Domestic Violence & Special Victims Section (DVSV) prosecutes sexual offenses and intimate partner violence committed by juveniles. DVSV also prosecutes crimes juveniles may commit against a vulnerable adult. For all others, those are handled by the Juvenile Section. While we prosecute most matters involving a youth accused of committing a crime in the District, the federal United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia may choose to charge some juveniles as adults for the most serious crimes
Our prosecutors work closely with law enforcement agencies throughout the District, including the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), the United States Park Police, the Metro Transit Police Department, and United States Capitol Police. We also work with District agencies to address the unique challenges that young people face and to develop and implement effective measures to safeguard the community and rehabilitate the youth that we prosecute. Community voice is important; members of our team routinely attend community meetings to hear directly from the public.
Goals of the District’s Juvenile Justice System
Consistent with its statutory mandate, OAG’s goals when prosecuting delinquency cases are to hold young people accountable, rehabilitate them so that they can become productive citizens, and provide for the safety of the public. Juvenile Section prosecutors balance the need to protect the community’s safety with the need to rehabilitate those that we prosecute.
To further these dual goals, OAG partners with MPD and the Department of Human Services’ Alternatives to the Court Experience (ACE) program to divert some youth into services rather than prosecution. Often, candidates for diversion have been arrested for the first time for a low-level offense. OAG also partners with Sasha Bruce Youthworks’, Community Approaches to Rapid Engagement Services (CARES) Project which offers youth and families a voluntary, compassionate alternative to arrest during intra-family conflicts, to allow for a short “cooling off” stay in a safe space while receiving free counseling and mediation to address underlying issues, improve communication, and support healing at home.
Role of Victims
Victim rights and public safety are of utmost concern and priority for our prosecutors. While prosecutors are required to serve as ministers of justice for the public as a whole and not as an advocate for any one individual, they understand that victims are often uniquely impacted by the aftermath of a crime and have the right to have their voices heard in the process. In cases of serious harm or injury, prosecutors coordinate victim services with our victim witness specialists to assist victims throughout the life of a case. Victims play essential roles in successful prosecutions. In addition to critical testimony at trial, victims provide valuable information in the rehabilitative process through their victim impact statements.