LA Minorities Disproportionately Ticketed For Petty Infractions

LOS ANGELES, CA — Black people in Los Angeles and other major California cities are issued citations for minor infractions such as loitering, drinking in public and sleeping on the street at far higher rates that whites, according to a new study released Thursday.

Black residents only account for 10% of the population in Los Angeles and and about 38% of its homeless population, yet they are 3.8 times more likely to be cited by police for a non-traffic infractions. In fact they received 30% of all citations issued by the Los Angeles Police Department between 2017 and 2019, according to a new study by the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area.

The low-level citations are defended as a technique for clearing homeless enclaves or corners where crimes occur. Elected officials have long seen them as necessary tools for police to uphold order, but critics contend they are used to violate the rights of minorities and criminalize poverty.

Black residents are targeted with loitering citations more than any other group in Los Angeles, account for 63% of citations issued by the LAPD for loitering while standing and 33% of citations for loitering while sitting or sleeping. 32% of citations for having an open bottle and 29% of citations for refusing to take down a tent, the study found, according to The Los Angeles Times. They account for 32% of citations for having an open bottle and 29% of citations for refusing to take down a tent, the study found.

Similarly, Latinos are also disproportionately cited in somes cities. In Los Angeles where they account for almost half the population, latinos are slightly more likely to be citied than white residents, according to the study.

The LAPD did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday, The Times reported.

The wide-ranging study used data from police, court filings and records from agencies across the state including the 15 largest police departments. Researchers found more than 250,000 non-traffic infraction citations in 2019 alone.

The Lawyers' Committee said the study represents one of the most comprehensive statewide reviews of low-level citations ever conducted and "shows a pattern of enforcement of petty laws against California's Black, Latinx and unhoused residents" that "would not be politically tenable if it targeted wealthy white Californians."

Civil liberties advocates and other activists have denounced such citations and the laws they are based on as unconstitutional and ineffective enforcement tools that have perpetuated structural racism in law enforcement for decades.

The new study concluded that, in California, such citations -- based on an array of local statutes -- are used as a tool for penalizing poverty and applied in "racist and classist" ways, said Tifanei Ressl-Moyer, an attorney and civil rights fellow at the Lawyers' Committee, in remarks cited by The Times.

Such citations saddle unhoused and other low-income people with hundreds of dollars in fines per citation and can lead to warrants for their arrests when those fines aren't paid, as they often aren't.

"This report shows that even where laws appear to be neutral in composition, they are disparately enforced against Black and Latinx people, and they have tremendous consequences," Ressl-Moyer said. "We believe cities and counties in California should stop enforcing them all together."

City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.