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March marked six years since the celebrated the launch of its new headquarters one floor above Busboys & Poets on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue in Southeast.  

Since that move to downtown Anacostia, FSFSC has continued its decades-long mission under the leadership of native Washingtonian and social entrepreneur Dionne Reeder. Within a matter of weeks, FSFSC will accentuate its work when it partners with the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and other D.C. agencies to prevent youth crime. 

That collaboration, Reeder said, would be on her terms.   

“We’re there to help with strength-based approaches, not approaches that tell [families] what’s best for them, but…they’re going to tell us what’s best for them,” Reeder said. “We come from a community in Ward 8 where there’s a lack of a lot of things, so we have to deal with what the environmental effects look like as we’re trying to impact these children’s lives.”

During the latter part of last week, as District leaders and residents alike were awaiting word from Congress about whether D.C.’s current fiscal year budget, and all that it funds, would remain intact, Reeder counted among those who converged on Navy Yard in support of MPD’s newly formed . 

Once JIRU fully launches later this month, it will operate within MPD’s Youth and Family Engagement Division with the goal of strengthening the police department’s youth outreach, preventing youth criminal offenses, and curbing youth recidivism. 

Through the initiative, Reeder and FSFSC will soon be immersed in conversations with , , , , ,  , and .  

For Reeder, it’s the perfect opportunity to go above and beyond addressing roadblocks to youth and families’ economic stability.  

“They don’t want anything different,” Reeder said about the residents she serves. “They want opportunities. They want money. They want jobs.” 

Crime Down, But More Work to Be Done 

MPD Chief Pamela Smith and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) announced JIRU’s launch during an April 3 event that preceded a community safety walk in Navy Yard with Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Markita Bryant and Emeka Moneme, executive director in the . 

JIRU, Smith said, aims to build upon year-to-date reductions in local crime by: expanding outreach to young people who are already involved in the justice system; investigating violent offenses that involve youth; and identifying and apprehending youth with outstanding custody orders.

“While our team at the Youth and Family Engagement Division and our detectives at the Investigative Services Bureau have done an excellent job at closing many of our cases, it has become evident to me that we need to dedicate a group of detectives and investigators to specifically focus on the issues facing our youth,” Smith said on April 3.  

In recent weeks, MPD, DCPS and other agencies have been receiving reports about on-campus brawls at , as well as youth criminal activity across the city. Smith said JIRU places MPD in the best position to maintain communication with those most at risk of committing or becoming a victim of violence. 

“We want to keep our youth out of the criminal justice system as a whole,” Smith said. “We will focus on those who reoffend, and we will prioritize intervention-driven accountability. We will work to identify and interrupt ongoing disputes to disrupt future offenses from occurring.” 

However, with staffing changes in the U.S. Justice Department, and D.C.’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget under threat, neither Smith nor Bowser may not be able to realize this vision unless the House approves the District of Columbia Local Funds Act. 

Bowser said just as much last week when she explained to reporters how a sudden $1.1 billion budget cut could prove detrimental to D.C. government agencies that directly engage youth.   

“We know that cuts in education programming affect young people and out-of-school time and other things so that could have impacts on crime,” Bowser said. “We know that if you cut school lunches, another way that kids eat, that can have impacts on crime. We know that if teaching and teaching staff are affected, that could have impacts on crime.” 

The mayor didn’t hold back in mentioning likely effects to local policing. 

“If our budget doesn’t pass and we have to look more closely at overtime spending for public safety officials, that will have an impact on crime,” she said. “These are distractions that are completely avoidable and we need to have our budget issue resolved at the Congress, and we need it done as soon as possible.”  

How to Establish Trust, and Questions ��������app DYRS Facilities 

Over the last two years, as the District and other jurisdictions jumped into COVID-19 recovery, chronic absenteeism, armed robberies, carjackings, and other violent crimes committed by the youth dominated news outlets and conversations within the John A. Wilson Building and MPD headquarters.

Solutions promoted by MPD and the Bowser administration — including a youth curfew and truancy legislation— are often aimed at holding parents more accountable while compelling their engagement with District-based human service agencies. 

While Reeder expressed solidarity with the Bowser administration, she provided what she called a nuanced perspective about the situations that parents are currently facing.  

“Many of our parents are in their early 20s, and a lot of that really yields to the fact of their inability to do a lot of the things that we want people to be able to do,” Reeder told The Informer. “This is more than a resource conversation. This is a conversation around…working with families to change behaviors” 

Reeder first joined FSFSC in 2000, where she served as executive director until 2017, shortly before running for an at-large D.C. Council seat. In 2019, Reeder assumed the helm of FSFSC once again, just months before she and other nonprofit executives responded to a pandemic that exacerbated quality-of-life issues affecting District families.     

Years after D.C.’s return from the public safety emergency, Reeder questioned the degree to which the D.C. government would be able to repair families without assistance from FSFSC and other grassroots entities. 

“We got to be at the table,” she said. “Families trust us. They don’t trust the government.” 

Despite some skepticism among families about the benefits of government intervention, there appears, according to public safety officials, a yearning among some parents to reign in their children with the help of the legal system. 

This embrace of the courts, by parents and public safety proponents alike, is happening as the D.C. Council and the Office of the D.C. Auditor coalesce around a new means of addressing conditions at the Youth Services Center (YSC) on Mt. Olivet Road in Northeast. 

YSC, under the control of DYRS, has been the site of drug overdoses, youth assaults, and what was alleged to be educational neglect. Last year, in response to youth complaints, the council passed the ROAD Act, which tasks ODCA with oversight of DYRS. Even so, with the convoluted placement process and the dearth of local long-term treatment facilities, there remains the question of whether DYRS can provide an environment amenable to rehabilitation.  

Bowser, in so many words, identified DYRS as one of the best resources the District can provide youth, especially those often in trouble with the law. 

“We want as many kids that have committed crimes, [and] we’d rather have them in our care than have them out to commit a more serious crime,” Bowser explained. “That is why we have spent a lot of time working with the U.S. attorney, but also working with judges to let them know that our system is focused on rehabilitation and we’re better able to be accountable for that child when we know that they are in the proper system.”