D.C. Sentencing Commission reports 50% rise in felony counts; cites data-access and IT limits

The D.C. Sentencing Commission told the Council’s Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety on Feb. 3 that felony counts sentenced in Superior Court rose about 50% in 2024 and that the commission faces continuing barriers to full data access and modern IT capacity.

The commission’s executive director, Lyndon Frey, gave the update at a public oversight hearing chaired by Councilmember Brooke Pinto. Frey said the total number of counts sentenced increased by 50% in 2024 and that cases and individuals sentenced rose by about 47%. He told the committee those figures were “a fairly dramatic increase.”

That trend came with a high level of compliance with the commission’s voluntary guidelines: 98.4% of felony counts complied with the guidelines in 2024, and 95.5% of counts were sentenced within the recommended ranges, Frey said.

Why it matters: sentencing trends and how offenses are ranked influence judges’ options and public-safety policy. Committee members pressed the commission on new offenses from the Secure DC legislation, how those offenses were ranked on the commission’s grid and what data limitations mean for future rulemaking and analysis.

Frey said the commission ranked 22 new offenses and enhancements from Secure DC last year and that that process now sometimes begins while the Council is still considering legislation so the commission can act more quickly once statutes take effect. He described the commission’s method: using a new offense’s statutory maximum punishment as a starting point for its default ranking because “the statutory maximum punishment [is] set for the offense by the Council.”

The committee and commission discussed the ranking of one Secure DC offense, unlawful discharge of a firearm. Frey said that offense received a lower ranking chiefly because the statutory maximum for the offense is two years, and the commission uses statutory maximums to determine which guideline boxes make legal sentencing options available. “The primary factor for unlawful discharge of a firearm … was because it has a statutory maximum of no more than two years,” Frey said.

Frey also reviewed 2024 case-disposition trends. He said 92% of sentencings resulted from plea agreements and that Rule 11(c)(1)(C) pleas — agreements specifying a particular sentence or range — fell to 6.2% of felony cases, a 25% drop from 2023 and a 40% drop from 2022. At the case level, prison sentences remained the most common outcome: 62% of felony cases received a prison sentence in 2024.

The commission emphasized steps taken to strengthen data and policy work. Frey described an internal reorganization that split staff into three teams (data research; legal and sentencing policy; general support) and said staff completed a non‑substantive top‑to‑bottom reorganization of the sentencing guidelines manual to improve clarity and usability. He said staff invested more than 1,000 hours on the restructuring project.

But Frey told the committee the commission faces two persistent obstacles. First, Superior Court’s ongoing Enterprise Justice case-management transition has altered data structures and created uncertainty about how and when the commission will receive court data. Frey said the court is a cooperative partner but that the new system’s implementation is not yet finalized. He told the committee staff will “need to modify our own in‑house data system so that we can continue to receive and analyze data.”

Second, and more limiting for some analyses, the commission does not have access to pre‑sentence report data prepared by the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency (CSOSA). Frey said the absence of pre‑sentence reports prevents the commission from reviewing defendants’ criminal histories in a way that would allow analysis of how criminal-history scoring changes would affect guideline recommendations. He said the commission is pursuing access through the Criminal Justice Coordinating Commission (CJCC) and federal partners and noted that obtaining such access could require changes to federal law.

On budget and technology, Frey told the committee the commission is seeking funding to move its servers to the cloud; he estimated a migration would cost about $650,000. He said staff workloads and increasingly complex data requests strain a “very lean” agency: the commission responded to 11 formal data requests in FY 2023, 29 in FY 2024 and five so far in FY 2025.

Committee Chair Brooke Pinto and commission leaders also discussed community engagement. Frey said the commission held more than 180 engagement events over the last year and that staff intend to develop a more formal mechanism to present community feedback to the full commission on a regular basis.

Looking ahead, the commission asked the committee for continued assistance on data access and for support to fund IT improvements. Judge Dania Dason, the commission chairperson and a Superior Court judge, said she was “very honored to now be the chairperson” and praised the commission’s data‑driven approach. Pinto closed the discussion and directed committee staff to continue follow‑up work with the commission and court partners.

No formal votes or motions were taken during the sentencing‑commission portion of the hearing.