Byron Donalds’ history on youth offender laws: How DC proposal breaks from his past

U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., wants to lower the age of eligibility for a Washington, D.C., youth rehabilitation law, saying that anyone 18 or older should face the full weight of the law as an adult.

"In DC, 18-24 y/o criminals are eligible to be charged & tried as juveniles," Donalds wrote Aug. 20 on X. "This is wrong. My bill, HR 4922 – ‘The DC CRIMES Act’ ensures if you’re 18 or older, you’re charged (as) an adult." 

Donalds’ renewed focus on the legislation, which he first introduced in 2024, follows President Donald Trump’s federal takeover of the district’s police force. Trump administration officials have specifically called out the district’s youthful offender law.

Donalds isn’t describing the district’s law correctly — it doesn’t allow 18- to 24-year-olds to be tried as juveniles, experts told us. It allows people in that age range, in certain cases, to have their convictions sealed and receive more flexible sentencing options, at a judge’s discretion.

He also has some related history. As a young adult, Donalds benefited from flexible sentencing when he faced drug and bribery charges. 

As a Florida legislator, he supported an expansive and bipartisan criminal justice law that slightly expanded who could qualify for youthful offender status. Like Washington, D.C.’s law, the Florida law allows for alternative sentencing options for certain young offenders to improve their chances of successful reentry to society. 

Daniel First, a spokesperson for Donalds’ congressional office, said Congress has a responsibility to end violence in the district and that the Florida law Donalds supported in 2019 made several updates to the criminal justice system and received unanimous support. (Seven members did not vote).

"These bills serve vastly different jurisdictions for vastly different reasons and any side-by-side comparison without proper context is a gross mischaracterization of facts," First said.

Ashley Nellis, an American University professor in the justice, law and criminology department, said youth offender laws are based on what psychologists have documented for years: that people’s brains are not fully developed until their mid-20s. 

"This underdevelopment pertains to key areas for criminal conduct," Nellis said. "Specifically, until the pre-frontal cortex is fully developed around one’s mid-20s, people are prone to more risk, impetuosity, less appreciation/understanding of consequences, and are especially prone to peer pressure."

Here’s an overview of Donalds’ history on the topic — and a fact-check of what he said his new bill would do.

Donalds’ personal and professional past on youth crime, criminal justice reform

Donalds, raised in Brooklyn, New York, moved to Tallahassee in the 1990s to attend Florida A&M University and Florida State University. 

Donalds was arrested on a misdemeanor marijuana possession charge in 1997, when he was 18. The charge was dismissed as part of a pretrial diversion program, Leon County court records show. He was fined $150.  

In 2000, at age 21, he was arrested on a second-degree felony charge of bribery. Donalds has said it was theft, not a bribe. In a 2014 interview, Donalds said an acquaintance convinced him he could make $1,000 by depositing a bad check. Donalds said he had to pay restitution to the bank for about seven times the original amount. He pleaded no contest and served one year of probation. The charge was later expunged.

Donalds has been open about his past criminal charges and characterized his past as a redemption story. "These were the actions of a young kid, I can’t undo that," he said in 2014. "I can't undo my mistakes, but the only thing I can do is to show and become the man that I am today for my family and for the community that I love."

As a Florida House member in 2019, Donalds co-sponsored HB 7125, which, among other measures, expanded who could qualify for Florida’s youthful offender sentencing provision.

Before the legislation, people had to be under 21 at sentencing in order to qualify for youthful offender status and more flexible penalty options. The legislation Donalds supported changed that to allow anyone who was under 21 at the time of their offense to qualify.

The law also expanded inmate reentry programming; raised felony thresholds for some offenses, including grand theft and retail theft; and expanded what criminal records were eligible to be sealed from public view. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the criminal justice package into law in June 2019.

That year, Donalds also sponsored HB 705, known as the Florida First Step Act, modeled after a federal crime law Trump signed in 2018. Donalds’ wide-ranging Florida version, which attracted some law enforcement opposition, would have required inmates to receive community reentry resources, authorized a prison entrepreneurship program and recommended sentences below the statutory minimum for certain drug trafficking offenses. The bill died in committee, but some provisions were rolled into HB 7125.

At the time, Donalds said people needed options to help integrate back into society. "We are just warehousing people," he said, according to the Tallahassee Democrat. "So, if you are actually going to help people to correct their lives … we have to reshape the system in a way that they can be full citizens when they come back."

What is Washington, D.C.’s youth rehabilitation law?

Donalds said the district’s law allows 18- to 24-year-olds to be charged and tried as juveniles. Experts say that’s not the case. The district’s Youth Rehabilitation Act, first passed in 1985, allowed people under 22 who were sentenced for a crime other than homicide to be eligible to have their convictions sealed once they completed their sentences.

A 2018 update raised the eligibility age to 24 and adjusted a provision that allowed people to apply for their convictions to be sealed after the end of their sentence, rather than at conviction.

Donalds’ proposed legislation would lower the eligibility age for youth offenders to 18 and younger and would strip the D.C. Council, the district’s legislative branch of government, of its ability to change mandatory-minimum sentences and sentencing guidelines.

In the district, the law defines a juvenile as someone under 18. People eligible for its youth rehabilitation law are tried in adult criminal court but can be considered for flexible sentencing, such as probation instead of detention, or sentences below mandatory-minimums.

"In certain limited cases, people under 18 are transferred to adult court," said Nellis, who wrote a book about rethinking juvenile justice system approaches. "Not the reverse."

Judges are not required to apply the law and some crimes are ineligible, including murder and some sex crimes. Judges are also required to consider several factors when applying the law, including the person’s age at the time of the offense and the nature of the crime. The court also considers the person’s family circumstances, as well as their capacity for rehabilitation.

Jodi Lane, a University of Florida criminology professor, said youthful offender laws are special programs within the adult justice system. "Some states, like Florida, have had separate youthful offender facilities in the adult system for years," she said. 

PolitiFact Staff Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

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