The bills follow US President Donald Trump’s crime crackdown in DC. Photo / Getty Images
United States House lawmakers have voted to allow 14-year-olds to be tried as adults for serious crimes and to treat young people more harshly in the Washington DC justice system.
The move fulfils a top request from the Trump Administration despite universal opposition among top DC elected officials.
The two bills are part of broader constellation of 14 policy ideas from Republicans that could overhaul criminal justice and policing in the nation’s capital.
Thirty-one Democrats joined Republicans in voting to restrict judges from having discretion to dole out lighter sentences to young people. Eight voted alongside Republicans to allow 14-year-olds to be charged as adults.
“Under President Trump’s leadership Republicans are restoring law and order to cities that have been virtually abandoned by the left,” said Representative Brandon Gill (R-Texas), and that was why he said he led the bill to charge 14-year-olds as adults “to make sure violent criminals are treated like violent criminals no matter what their age”.
The bills could face more challenges in the Senate, where the filibuster requires 60 votes to advance.
The notable Democratic support for at least one of the bills - largely from lawmakers facing competitive re-election races - underscores DC’s vulnerability in Congress, especially as the city is facing extraordinary challenges to its home rule.
The bills follow US President Donald Trump’s crime crackdown in DC, in which he declared an emergency and asserted control over DC police, unleashed a surge of federal officers to make arrests across the city, many targeting immigrants, and sent thousands of armed National Guard troops onto city streets.
Trump’s declared crime emergency expired last week just as House Republicans advanced the 14 bills, showing the relentless pace of home rule challenges the city is contending with this year and the expansive effort by the GOP to imprint its policy priorities on the deep-blue city.
Congress can pass or overturn DC laws because it has constitutional authority over the city.
Just one Republican, Representative Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), opposed the DC bills.
Trump and US Attorney for DC Jeanine Pirro have called for harsher penalties for juveniles.
“They don’t need to be coddled anymore,” she said in July. “They need to be held accountable.”
Mirroring the last two years, teens in 2025 still account for more than half of robberies and carjackings, according to city data.
The legislation the House passed this week would allow Pirro to charge a 14-year-old as an adult for certain serious offences, including murder and armed robbery, without a judicial hearing; currently she has that authority only for ages 16 and up.
The DC attorney-general, who handles juvenile crime, can petition a judge to transfer teens 15 and up to adult court for alleged felonies, and the GOP bill would also bring that down to 14.
Representative Robert Garcia (California), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, argued that it was “irresponsible” to put a 14-year-old in the adult system.
“If you commit a crime you should be held accountable. But a 14-year-old is not an adult,” Garcia said. “They are a middle-schooler. Their brains are still developing. Treating them as adults is shameful.”
DC-based criminal justice researchers and advocates argue the bills will not make the city safer, pointing to research finding better public safety outcomes for youths who remain in the juvenile system compared to those who are tried as adults.
The DC Criminal Justice Co-ordinating Council also found in a 2022 analysis that young people who had their convictions set aside under the Youth Rehabilitation Act were significantly less likely to reoffend compared to similarly situated youth who did not receive that benefit.
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