Los Angeles County-Reimagining Community Safety
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.:TT- - t -1 I j I 1 l .... I ... THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 1 1 ' ~ t + __ J I ... t ♦ - t ~ t + t +I t . REIMAGINING ~ . I 1 + _.,_~ --r-- t COMMUNITY SAFETY ~ . + ..... - -➔ Los Angeles County --- - ... 'OLICE PROTECTION PFU-SHERIFF SHERIFF-ADMIN, RATION *SHERIFF - AUT~ ATION FUND SHERIFF - CL~ RING ACCOUNT SHERIFF - ¢ UNTY SERVICES SHERIFF COUR -+ + + ..___...___.. r SHERIFF-PATROL-CONTRACT CITIES SHERIFF-PATROL-SPECIALIZED AN SHERIFF - PATROL-UNINCORP SHERIFF-PATROL CLEAR! *SHERIFF - PROCE . UNO * ·1AL TRAINING FUND 1-11=,i;~ - VEHICLE THEFT PREVENTION PROGRAM FUND 135,114,354.32 2 789,309.03 91.19 6.22 83.85 77.07 THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 2 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AUTHORS Eva Bitrán Senior Staff Attorney ACLU of Southern California Jacky Guerrero Director, Equity in Community Investments Catalyst California Elycia Mulholland Graves Director, Research & Data Analysis Catalyst California Melanie Ochoa Director of Police Practices ACLU of Southern California Chauncee Smith Senior Manager, Reimagine Justice & Safety Catalyst California DATA ANALYSIS Elycia Mulholland Graves Director, Research & Data Analysis Catalyst California Jennifer Zhang Senior Research & Data Analyst Catalyst California BUDGET ANALYSIS Jacky Guerrero Director, Equity in Community Investments Catalyst California Myanna A. Khalfani Senior Research & Policy Analyst Catalyst California Kianna Ruff Justice Reinvestment Manager COMMUNICATIONS, EDITING & ADMINISTRATION Juliana Castillo Executive Assistant Catalyst California Andrés Dae Keun Kwon Policy Counsel and Senior Organizer ACLU of Southern California John Dobard Vice President of Policy and Programs Catalyst California Jenna Pittaway Creative Director ACLU of Southern California Roxana Reyes Senior Digital Communications Associate Catalyst California Michael Russo Vice President of Policy and Programs Catalyst California Ronald Simms, Jr. Associate Director of Communications Catalyst California Chauncee Smith Senior Manager, Reimagine Justice & Safety Catalyst California Adrienna Wong Senior Staff Attorney ACLU of Southern California COVER ART & REPORT DESIGN Caylin Yorba-Ruiz Graphic Designer THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 3 SPONSORING ORGANIZATIONS This report was jointly produced by Catalyst California (formerly Advancement Project California) and the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. Catalyst California (formerly Advancement Project California), alongside partners, dismantles racial injustice and redesigns systems for access and equity. We do this by shifting and building power with movement leaders in communities of color who are making real change. With the collective impact of community, data, and policy, we make the California Dream inclusive and available to all. With a mix of audacity, analysis, and action, we foster justice and create equitable futures for everyone in our state. We translate complex ideas about communities into narratives that inspire action with the racial equity movement. To achieve our vision of a world where justice thrives, we uphold the truth through deep research, turn policies into actionable change, and shift money and power back into our communities. We are a catalyst for systems transformation, ensuring that community-driven action, research, and policy foster an equitable future. We are willing to venture into the unknown for a cause, because to get to where we need to go, we need to do things in ways we have never done before. CATALYST CALIFORNIA Advancing Racial Just ice The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California defends the fundamental rights outlined in the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights. These include the right to freedom of speech and assembly, the right to religious freedom, due process of law, equality before the law, and the right to privacy. The ACLU SoCal also relies on state constitutional provisions and federal and state laws that further these and similar rights. The ACLU SoCal is committed to helping re-envision an approach to public safety that is fair and free of racial bias, keeps communities safe and respects the dignity and rights of all who come into contact with it. We strive to end overcriminalization; ensure fair and constitutionally sound treatment of all people; remove barriers to reentry; and increase government transparency and accountability. The ACLU SoCal works with community and organizational partners to reform California’s community safety approaches to end harsh policies that result in mass incarceration; achieve effective communitybased solutions and opportunities; and prioritize rehabilitation and transformative justice over punishment. 100 ACW SoCal THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 4 PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS Thank you for providing insight through regional and statewide stakeholder meetings. ACLU of Northern California Dignity and Power Now ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties Fund for Guaranteed Income ACT-LA AIM SoCal All of Us or None Alliance for Community Transit Los Angeles (ACT LA) Inner City Struggle Justice2Jobs Coalition LA Forward Liberty Hill Foundation Million Dollar Hoods Black Alliance for Just Immigration Pillars of the Community Black Lives Matter - Los Angeles Promoting Unity, Safety & Health Los Angeles (PUSH LA) Brothers, Sons, Selves Coalition California Black Power Network Sacramento Area Congregations Together California Immigrant Policy Center Soledad Enrichment Action Check the Sheriff Coalition Starting Over, Inc. Congregations Organized for Prophetic Engagement White People 4 Black Lives Decarcerate Sacramento THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Introduction .........................................................................................................................................7 II. Analysis ................................................................................................................................................10 a. LASD’s Patrol Practices are Wasteful..........................................................................................10 b. LASD’s Patrol Practices are Racially Biased, Especially Against Black Angelenos ...........................................................................................17 c. LA County Devotes a Massive Portion of its Budget to LASD’s Policing of Traffic and Minor Infractions ..................................................................20 d. The Costs to LA County for LASD’s Practices Extend Beyond the LASD Patrol Budget .................................................................................................22 e. Communities Bear Additional Economic, Physical, Psychological and Social Costs of Policing ...............................................................................23 III. Conclusion and Recommendations .......................................................................................28 THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 6 Continuing to fund policing practices that are clearly harmful and ineffective rather than investing in empowering and solution-oriented social interventions undermines, rather than contributes to, our collective wellbeing. THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 7 I. INTRODUCTION Communities are safe when every person is healthy, secure, and supported. Los Angeles County’s budget—which, in many ways, is a statement of what it most values—does not reflect this fundamental truth. Rather, the County fails to sufficiently invest resources in programs that advance those interests and instead spends an overwhelming amount of money on its Sheriff’s Department (LASD). In so doing, the County underwrites practices that harm people of color and undermine community safety. LASD’s largest unit—patrol—spends most of its time on deputy-initiated stops for traffic violations, not, as may be assumed, responding to the public’s requests for service. All too often, those traffic stops are for minor equipment violations, administrative issues, or moving violations that pose little to no safety risk. Wasting tremendous public dollars on traffic stops for missing bike lights, outdated registration, and other minor issues is even more troubling because those stops are often the primary entry point for a litany of harms, such as harassment, dehumanization, economic extraction through fees and fines, uses of force, and death. These encounters rarely result in deputies recovering evidence of criminal activity or arrests for serious crimes. Instead, such encounters severely harm the emotional and mental well-being of people stopped. In communities where these practices are concentrated (i.e., those with higher proportions of people of color), this devastates public health. These harms are especially troubling because the County annually spends billions of dollars on the LASD practices from which they arise. This approach is wasteful and it directs resources away from policies that have been shown to improve community safety—such as investments in transportation, healthcare, and housing. But it is also harmful because policing materially worsens financial and social outcomes for Angelenos and the overall public health of the County. This harm is not equally distributed but is concentrated in communities of color, especially Black and Latine1 communities. Continuing to fund policing practices that are clearly harmful and ineffective rather than investing in empowering and solution-oriented social interventions undermines, rather than contributes to, our collective wellbeing. This report builds upon Reimagining Community Safety in California: From Deadly and Expensive Sheriffs to Equity and Care Centered Wellbeing, a joint publication by the ACLU SoCal and Catalyst California that analyzed officerreported stop data2 from California law enforcement agencies, publicly available budget information, stories from community-based organizations, and public policy research. It found that Sheriff’s departments across the state waste public dollars, devastate people of color, and undermine community safety.3 This report takes a closer look at those issues specifically for LASD. It encourages the County to respond to real community needs by changing its funding priorities and allocating funds to the policies and programs that allow Angelenoes to thrive. LASD Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department LATINE A gender-inclusive term used in this report to replace the terms “Latina(s),” “Latino(s),” “Latinx(s),” and “Hispanic.” THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 8 The County’s Investment in LASD Undermines Community Safety The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department states that its mission is to “partner with the community[,] [t]o proactively [p]revent [c]rime, enforce the law fairly and enhance the public’s trust through transparency and accountability.”4 While LASD has failed on several counts,5 its focus on "proactive" crime prevention erodes trust and undermines public safety. Indeed, the dominant practices of LASD patrol have been shown to cause substantial psychological harm both to individuals stopped and to communities that are subject to high levels of policing, extract resources from the community, and ultimately result in outcomes that are more likely to increase participation in crime. The majority of LASD’s public contacts—approximately 94% of stops,6 which accounts for nearly 89% of deputies’ time7 —consist of “pro-active” or deputy-initiated stops rather than contacts arising from requests for service from members of the public. This means that the vast majority of LASD stops are not in response to members of the public seeking police intervention, but rather result from discretionary decisions by LASD deputies to engage individuals— most often for minor traffic infractions. In addition, data show that even when responding to criminal activity, LASD’s effectiveness is limited at best. Clearance rates, for example, measure the difference between the number of crimes a law enforcement agency reports within its jurisdiction and the number of cases resolved through arrests or other means. In 2019, for crimes that LASD reported to the state Department of Justice, LASD only cleared 63% of violent crimes, 53% of homicides, and 10% of property crimes.8 Historically, local governments have prioritized investments in law enforcement and incarceration and failed to sufficiently support the local institutions most capable of fostering healthy and safe communities. This misplaced approach is reflected in the budget, with LA County spending over $3.5 billion on LASD in the 2019-2020 fiscal year—nearly 10% of the entire County budget—with these funds spent primarily on salaries and retirement funds for staff.9 In comparison, in 2019-2020, the County spent $45 million from the general fund on homeless and housing services10 and $71.1 million on affordable housing,11 which collectively comprise 0.3% of the budget. The County also collects funds from taxpayers devoted to homelessness services following voters' approval of Measure H in 2017, which in Fiscal Year 2020 totaled approximately $444 million. The County has typically spent less than half the revenue collected through Measure H.12 CLEARANCE RATES A metric that captures the difference between the number of crimes a law enforcement agency reports within its jurisdiction and the number of cases resolved through arrests or other means. $3.5 THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING /billion 9 I - I To put these numbers in perspective, LA County spent 36 times more general fund dollars on LASD than on homeless and housing services. I This is extremely troubling because research shows that investing in the upstream drivers of safety risks (like housing, education, and economic security) is more effective than doubling-down on criminalization. The amount the County has allocated to LASD has only continued to rise—with the County approving an LASD budget of over $3.8 billion for the 2022-2023 fiscal year, representing a $1 billion increase over the last 12 years.13 These communities—which are often most impacted by crime and violence— also suffer the most from the County’s decision to invest in police rather than funding both proven and innovative solutions to improve community safety. The Sheriff’s narrative on public safety ignores both the substantial harm incurred by people subject to policing— including not only the direct physical injury resulting from police uses of force, but also consequences that arise from being stopped or arrested by the police even when the stop does not involve force. These include the welldocumented physical and mental health impacts experienced by the individual stopped as well as those experienced by members of communities where such stops are prevalent, economic harms like lost wages, and other personal costs like loss of child custody or impairment of immigration status.14 Because many of these harms are most likely to be experienced by people of color,15 and the Black community in particular, this popular public safety narrative enshrines racism as a tolerable byproduct of policing. Moreover, the dominant narratives also ignore the financial costs incurred by the government and criminal legal system after police intervene, whether or not a stop results in prosecution. This includes time and money expended by other County offices such as the Office of the District Attorney and the Office of the Public Defender, court salaries, the cost of jail and prison beds, and funds spent as a result of lawsuits filed against the County arising out of LASD misconduct. All of these costs—both human and economic—must be considered as the County makes decisions about how to spend its finite funds to best serve the needs of its members. $103 million DIVERSION & REENTRY ~ I I II I ~ I ~ ~ I I ~ $71.1 million AFFORDABLE HOUSING - $45 million HOMELESS/ HOUSING SERVICES LASD THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 10 II. ANALYSIS LASD’s Patrol Practices are Wasteful Most of LASD’s Time is Spent in Deputy-Initiated Traffic Stops In the media, the Sheriff’s Department pushes the narrative that having deputies on the street is necessary to protect the public from violence, which in turn justifies the Department’s requests for greater funding.16 However, the data shows that this narrative does not reflect the reality of how LASD spends its time, and correspondingly, its budget. Rather, out of all the deputy time spent engaged in stops, nearly 89%, is spent on deputy-initiated interactions with members of the public, and only 11.2% of their time is spent on stops arising from calls for service.17 Most of the time LASD deputies engage the public, they are policing traffic—not intervening to stop violent crime, as their popular narrative suggests. A whopping 80% of all deputy stops concern traffic violations.18 If we look solely at those stops that arise out of deputy-initiated contacts with the public, traffic stops comprise an even higher percentage of deputy activity—84.3% of deputy-initiated stops19 —which accounts for 79.1% of the time spent on deputyinitiated stops.20 STOP An interaction in which a peace officer detains a person such that they are not free to leave. CALL FOR SERVICE An external request, such as from a community member. Figure 1. Percent of Time Spent on Deputy-Initiated Stops vs. Calls for Service ••• •• Response to Service Calls 11.2% Traffic Violations Reasonable Suspicion Outstanding Arrest Warrant Consent Search Other Deputy-Initiated Stops 88.8% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% Data analysis by Catalyst California. Methodology available in "Reimagining Community Safety in California," (Catalyst California & ACLU SoCal October 2022). 100% THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 11 The Vast Majority of LASD Stops are for Traffic Violations, Misdemeanors, or Infractions The amount of time LASD spends on stops where the deputy allegedly has reasonable suspicion21 to suspect a person is engaged in criminal activity is truly minimal. Overall, reasonable suspicion accounts for less than 14% of all deputy stops.22 Within deputy-initiated stops, only 9.6% are based on reasonable suspicion.23 Converting those stops to hours, this acconts for 11.7% of deputies' time spend on stops that they initiated.24 Moreover, stops based upon reasonable suspicion are more likely to occur when deputies respond to actual calls for service from the public than when they initiate the stop themselves. Less than ten percent of the stops initiated by a deputy are based on a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.25 In contrast, over 77% of the stops that arise out of a member of the public calling to request deputy assistance are based upon reasonable suspicion.26 In other words, when LASD deputies are engaged in “proactively” addressing crime, less than one-tenth of the stops they are making are based on a deputy’s suspicion that the individual is engaged in criminal activity rather than a traffic code violation. To the extent LASD deputies actually engage individuals for whom they assert there is a reasonable suspicion to think that they may be involved in criminal activity, that is much more likely to occur in the less than 12% of stops that arise when deputies respond to direct requests for assistance. Thus, their “proactive” crime prevention efforts are less likely to result in detecting possible criminal activity than their responses to the much more limited set of public requests for assistance. REASONABLE SUSPICION The constitutional legal standard that must be met for an officer to require a person to submit to a stop to allow an officer to investigate potential criminal activity. It requires that an officer to be able to point to specific, objective facts about the circumstances that suggest a person is involved in criminal activity. This is a lower standard than the “probable cause” standard that is required to justify an arrest. THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 12 Figure 2. Percent of Time Spent by LASD Deputies on Officer-Initiated Stops Reasonable Suspicion 11.7% 3.9% Outstanding Arrest Warrant 2.1% Other Reason 3.2% Consent Search 25,269 HOURS spent on stops Traffic Violation 79.1% Data analysis by Catalyst California. Methodology available in "Reimagining Community Safety in California," (Catalyst California & ACLU SoCal October 2022). Even stops based upon deputies’ allegations that they suspect someone of criminal activity do not support LASD's narrative that they are primarily involved in stopping individuals engaged in serious violent crime. To the contrary, deputies reported that 55% of all their reasonable suspicion stops were based upon suspected behavior that, if the conduct did in fact occur, would only constitute a misdemeanor—which is a crime punishable by a fine or no more than a year in jail.27 And among these misdemeanor stops, the most common suspected violations were trespassing and loitering.28 In addition, nearly 21% of stops were based upon conduct that, even if it occurred, would still only constitute an “infraction,”29 which is “a relatively minor violation of law, which cannot result in imprisonment or loss of liberty.”30 THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 13 Figure 3. Breakdown of All LASD Stops by Reason for Stop TRAFFIC VIOLATIONS 83% REASONABLE SUSPICION 10% 3% CONSENT SEARCH 4% OTHER THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 14 Infractions include behavior like jaywalking or sitting down in a public space. LASD most frequently stopped people for the suspected infraction of possessing an open alcohol container in public.31 Thus, nearly a quarter of all stops based upon a deputy’s belief that a “crime” may be occurring involve minor violations that could, at most, result in a fine. Only 23.6% of reported stops based on reasonable suspicion were based upon suspicion of a crime that would be classified as a felony.32 So, of the 13.5% of deputies’ stops that were based on suspicion of a crime, only 23.6% of those were for crimes that could result in anything more than a fine or a year in county jail. Put another way, of the total 188,380 reported stops33 that LASD deputies made in 2019, only 4,344—or approximately 2% of stops—were for suspicion of a crime that is classified as a felony. Acknowledging that 2% of deputies’ stops involve reasonable suspicion of a felony does not mean that 2% of stops involve serious offenses. Even if a deputy contends they suspect that a person may be committing a crime, this does not mean that the deputy is correct—there may be no crime occurring at all. In fact, only around 35% of all stops based on reasonable suspicion result in an arrest, while 20% of these stops result in the deputies taking no action at all, not even issuing the stopped person a warning. Thus, it is not uncommon for initial assumptions about criminal activity to be incorrect.34 Further, while arrests only occur in around one-third of deputies’ reasonable suspicion stops, even these arrests may be unrelated to any significant community safety concern. Included in the 35% of reasonable suspicion stops that do result in an arrest are about 2,045 arrests—which account for approximately 7.7% of arrests arising from reasonable suspicion stops—that are made pursuant to an outstanding warrant. These are likely to be unrelated to person’s conduct that led to the basis of the stop.35 This includes the substantial number of arrests pursuant to warrants based on an individual’s failure to pay a traffic citation or appear in traffic court. For instance, over a three-year period, LASD made 4,391 arrests pursuant to warrants for failure to pay or failure to appear related to a traffic infraction, and these arrests were disproportionately of Black and Latine people.36 Indeed, the reality of the types of crimes that drive arrests and incarceration diverges drastically from the popular narrative that arrests are driven by violent crime. The five most frequent charges on which an individual was booked into LA County jail, accounting for nearly 33% of charges, were: drug possession, parole and probation supervision violations (which may not involve any activity that would independently constitute a crime), driving on a suspended license, and possession of paraphernalia.37 INFRACTION A relatively minor violation of law, which cannot result in imprisonment or loss of liberty MISDEMEANOR A crime punishable by a fine or no more than one year in jail. THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 15 Figure 4. Percent of All LASD Stops by Type of Suspected Violation TRAFFIC STOP 83% REASONABLE SUSPICION 10% 4% 3% CONSENT SEARCH OTHER 0.3% 5.4% Misdemeanor Felony 2.3% 2% Infraction Municipal Code or Unspecified THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 16 LASD’s Use of Pretextual Stops is a Failed Strategy If we take a closer look at LASD’s traffic enforcement activities, we see that they do not further the dominant narrative that relates policing to community safety. Approximately 20% of traffic stops were for equipment violations and a further 14.6% for non-moving violations, including expired registrations.38 Further, to the extent LASD uses traffic enforcement as an entry point for investigations of more serious offenses, LASD’s practices still fail to further its own narrative of public safety. Police often use minor traffic infractions as a basis for pretext stops, which are stops that “occur[ ] when an officer stops a person ostensibly for a traffic violation or minor infraction but with the actual intention of using the stop to investigate based on an officer’s hunch that by itself would not amount to reasonable suspicion or probable cause.”39 Thus, these pretext stops are commonly not initiated because an individual’s behavior creates a public safety concern, but rather because the deputy wants to subject them to an investigation for criminal activity despite the absence of facts that would legally justify stopping and investigating them for that suspected activity. These pretext stops are a recognized practice within LASD, and its racially biased stops of bicyclists, reported in the Los Angeles Times and addressed by the Board of Supervisors,40 reflect this practice. LASD deputies were found to “routinely escalate [bicycle] stops into more intrusive encounters and disproportionately pull over Latino riders.”41 An LASD sergeant admitted that these low-level stops are not initiated to address any public safety issue around bike riding, but rather because they are “looking for guns and drugs... [and] [t]he more stops you make, the more guns and drugs you find.”42 The effectiveness of this approach to crime is belied by the data, with contraband found in less than 8% of bicycle stops, and weapons found in less than onehalf of 1% of such stops.43 Nonetheless, the Sheriff’s Department “defended the use of bike stops as a necessary and legitimate tool to fight crime... [despite] [t]he low rates of success deputies have finding drugs or other contraband while searching bicyclists.”44 LASD’s broader traffic enforcement practices similarly reflect this tactic of using traffic stops as a means to discover evidence of more serious crime; and it is equally unsuccessful. Almost 97% of all traffic stops do not uncover any contraband or evidence of a crime.45 Deputies recover firearms in less than one-fifth of 1% of traffic stops and recover other weapons at a similarly low rate.46 This means that less than one half of 1% of all traffic stops result in deputies uncovering any weapons of any kind. PRETEXT STOP A traffic stop occurring under the guise of a minor traffic violation but that provide officers an opportunity to investigate an unrelated suspicion. 97% of all traffic stops do not uncover any contraband or evidence of a crime. THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 17 LASD Patrol Practices are Racially Biased, Especially Against Black Angelenos The above-detailed LASD practices are not only wasteful and invasive, but are also disproportionately directed at people of color, particularly Black Angelenos. Black people in Los Angeles are policed at higher rates than any other racial group across all categories of police activity. Among self-initiated stops by deputies, Black people experience the highest stop rates for stops based on traffic violations, reasonable suspicion, and “consensual” searches.47 “Consensual” searches occur when an officer lacks reasonable suspicion or any other legal justification to conduct a search, and requests consent from the individual to search their person or belongings. While these searches should only occur when consent is voluntarily given, research shows that people rarely refuse an officer’s request to search, and that such requests from authority figures are almost never denied, even if the subject thinks the request is unreasonable.48 CONSENSUAL SEARCHES A search for which the officer lacks reasonable suspicion or any other legal justification to conduct a search, and requests consent from the individual to search their person or belongings. Figure 5. Basis for All LASD Deputy-Initiated Stops by Race Black NHPI 2.8 White 1.5 Latine 1.7 Asian 60.6 6.7 58.7 5.6 47.3 5.8 26.1 0.5 0.1 AIAN 1.5 0.4 Two or More Races 0.4 0.2 0 101.8 17.5 3.1 ■ ■ ■ 4.8 Traffic Violation Reasonable Suspicion Consensual encounter and search 5.1 20 40 60 80 100 per 1,000 people of same race As further discussed on page 19, the data on stops involving Latine individuals likey obscures the extent to which Latine people are stopped by LASD deputies. Data analysis by Catalyst California. Methodology available in "Reimagining Community Safety in California," (Catalyst California & ACLU SoCal October 2022). 120 THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 18 Figure 6. Basis for LASD Deputy-Initiated Traffic Stops by Race Black 20.2 NHPI 7.3 White AIAN Two or More Races 0% 43.7 9.4 39.2 9.2 9.8 Latine Asian 50.9 30.4 6.2 30.6 10.2 21.9 2.1 2.0 ■ ■ ■ 2.6 1.5 0.8 0.8 0.7 Moving Equipment Non-moving, incl. registration 3.6 20% 40% 60% per 1,000 people of same race As further discussed on page 19, the data on stops involving Latine individuals likey obscures the extent to which Latine people are stopped by LASD deputies. Data analysis by Catalyst California. Methodology available in "Reimagining Community Safety in California," (Catalyst California & ACLU SoCal October 2022). Thus, consensual searches, although a comparatively small proportion of stops, reflect police contacts where there is no factual basis for an officer to believe a crime has occurred or is occurring, and officers nonetheless stop the person and search their belongings or body—and a disproportionate number of those contacts are experienced by Black Angelenos. LASD deputies stop and search more than 3 out of every 1,000 Black people who live in areas patrolled by LASD without any suspicion that those people are engaged in any criminal activity, not even as minimal as a traffic violation.49 With respect to traffic stops—which comprise the vast majority of LASD activity—deputies stopped over 101 Black individuals per 1,000 for traffic violations, versus approximately 59 white individuals per 1,000.50 And while alleged traffic infractions are the dominant basis for stops of all racial groups, Black Angelenos are targeted for non-moving or equipment violations, like expired registration or broken tail lights. Approximately 50 out of every 1,000 Black people were stopped for nonmoving and equipment violations, versus 19 out of 1,000 white people.51 THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 19 A Note on the Data Surrounding Stops of Latine People While LASD’s self-reported stop data reflects significant disparities in the way that its deputies police Black people living and moving throughout the County, it does not appear to reflect similar levels of overpolicing for Latine people. This observation is surprising because analyses of LASD conduct relying on other data sources, including the aforementioned reporting on bicycle stops and studies on deputies’ uses of deadly force,52 have shown that Latine residents are also disproportionately subject to LASD’s harmful policing practices. An audit of LASD’s stop data collection practices performed by the Los Angeles County Office of Inspector General revealed that LASD deput failed to report over 50,000 deputy-initiated stops to the Department of Justice, and that Latine individuals represented 66% of unreported stops.53 Thus, not only is data missing, but these omissions are not randomly distributed— they disproportionately conceal actions taken towards individuals perceived to be Latine. This report relies on the stop data reported to the Department of Justice and is therefore impacted by deputies’ underreporting. Thus, had LASD’s selfreported stop data not undercount stops of Latine residents, this data—like others—would have revealed that they were also subjected to frequent stops and to stops for minor violations at much higher rates than discussed here. THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 20 LA County Devotes a Massive Portion of its Budget to LASD’s Policing of Traffic and Minor Infractions Los Angeles County spent $3.5 billion on the Sheriff’s Department in the 20192020 fiscal year.54 Nearly one-third of this budget—$1.1 billion—was spent on the patrol arm of the LASD, which conducts the vast majority of stops.55 In general, most of the money the County spends on LASD goes to salaries and benefits to maintain its staff of nearly 10,000 sworn deputies and approximately 18,000 other staff.56 The patrol division is no exception: the County spent $1.088 billion on salaries and benefits57 to support its 5,646 full-time patrol positions.58 As stated above, over 94% of deputies’ stops are self-initiated. Of the time spent conducting those stops, a little over 79% of time is spent on traffic. Using a one-to-one correlation between budget and patrol time estimates, an equivalent proportion—79%—of the LASD patrol budget is $776.6 million.60 While there is no way to definitively allocate each dollar spent by LASD to a specific practice or outcome, this $776.6 million is a rough estimate of what the County spends to allow LASD to conduct its massive traffic enforcement effort. When we consider the costs of the patrol division alongside the proportion of time that its deputies spend policing traffic and other minor offenses, we can estimate how much each of the Department’s practices discussed above costs the County. This estimate assumes that the share of stop time devoted to a particular issue is the same as that practice’s share of total patrol costs.59 By doing so, we can provide a rough estimate of what it actually costs for LASD to engage in the practices documented in its stop data. Even this estimate is likely to be conservative, because it does not account for costs incurred outside of the patrol division such as time spent by those outside of the patrol division for duties triggered by stops or arrests made by patrol deputies. Another way to conceptualize the costs of LASD’s policing practices is to consider the total amount that the department—or more narrowly the patrol division— requires to operate and to compare those costs with the results obtained. LASD does not assert that the primary purpose of its deputies is to patrol traffic; to the contrary, it argues that its value is in protecting the public from serious crime. However, consider that less than 2.3%—less than 4,500— involved stops of individuals that deputies even suspected of committing any activity that could be classified a felony. If LASD’s purpose is to address potentially-serious crime and it requires $1.1 billion for patrol officers to make approximately 4,344 stops on suspicion of felony activity, then averaged across the patrol division budget each felony stop costs approximately $253,222. 10,000 sworn LASD officers 18,000 additional LASD staff 5,646 full-time LASD patrol positions $776M rough estimate of County funds used to allow LASD to conduct traffic enforcement $253,222 estimated average cost of each suspected felony stop THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 21 However, the cost to the County to complete each of these stops may be even greater. If we consider that LASD requires over $3.5 billion to function for one year, and, in exchange for that funding, its deputies make 4,344 stops that may involve any possible felony-level activity, then the cost incurred by LASD to make these suspected felony stops is actually $805,709 per stop. Similarly, the proportional cost paid for LASD to locate and remove the 470 guns it found over a single year averages around $2.3 million per gun found if we consider only the patrol division budget, and over $7 million per gun found if we use guns retrieved as a measure of LASD’s overall “effectiveness.” In comparison with other County-level investments in crime and violence reduction, the County’s general fund investment in diversion programs designed to move people away from the criminal-legal system for 2019-2020 was $103 million—less than the County’s investment in LASD to recover 15 guns. To put LASD’s efforts in greater perspective, in 2022, the Los Angeles Police Department held a gun buyback event and paid individuals $100-200 for each gun they turned in and obtained 459 guns—including assault weapons and guns manufactured to be untraceable—in one weekend.61 This event that provided the public with an incentive for removing guns from circulation obtained the same results as LASD’s invasive, multi-million dollar pretext-stop practices for the entire year, for less than $100,000. Figure 7. Percent of Recovery Out of Total Stops Less than half of 1% (832 stops) of traffic stops (157,090 stops) recover weapons of any kind. THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 22 The Costs to LA County for LASD’s Practices Extend Beyond the LASD Patrol Budget While the above reflects one way to understand the County’s substantial investment in LASD’s policing of primarily traffic activity, this significantly undercounts the actual costs that the County pays to support LASD’s practices. For instance, beyond patrol costs, for every stop that results in an arrest, the County incurs additional charges, such as booking fees and daily maintenance costs, for all people detained. In 2019, booking fees averaged around $324 and maintenance costs $164 per individual, per day.62 In 2019 LASD recorded 108,266 bookings into its jail, collectively resulting in over 3 million days in jail—equivalent to 8,640 years of detention— with a minimum cost to the County of $544,444,457.63 While this number includes arrests originating outside of LASD, in 2019 LASD deputies alone arrested at least 12,429 individuals without a warrant.64 If each of these individuals was detained for only a single day, that cost would still be over $6 million dollars simply for one day’s worth of booking and maintenance fees—and many individuals remain in the jail for weeks, months, or years without being convicted of any crime. The 2019-2020 County budget also allocated approximately $1.4 billion to operate County jails for one year.65 While some of the above costs may be included in this budget item, over $888 million of this item is allocated solely for salaries and employee benefits.66 $544M In addition, LASD deputies often cost County residents significantly more than just the cost of their paychecks: in 2019, Los Angeles County paid over $53 million on judgments and settlements in cases arising from Sheriff deputies’ treatment of members of the public, including those within their custody in the jails.67 The County was additionally responsible for over $12.8 million in litigation expenses, paying legal counsel to defend LASD deputies in these suits.68 These costs— which have not lessened between 2019 and the present—are often directly tied to deputies’ behavior on patrol. allocated in the 20192020 County budget on jail operations. In fact, the County paid nearly $50 million in December 2022 alone to resolve five cases involving deputy misconduct.69 Putting these costs in the context of LASD’s policing practices, which largely amount to traffic stops unrelated to any serious criminal activity, demonstrates the wastefulness of investing billions of dollars into LASD as a means of preventing or responding to serious criminal activity or advancing public safety. spent on 108,266 bookings into LASD’s jail in 2019. $1.4B $53M paid on judgements and settlements in cases arises from treatment by Sheriff deputies in 2019 $12.8M paid in litigation expenses dedfending LASD deputies $50M spent in December 2022 alone to resolve deputy misconduct THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 23 Communities Bear Additional Economic, Physical, Psychological and Social Costs of Policing The error of this approach to community safety—devoting billions of dollars to police conduct that is, at best, tangentially related to the safety concerns that LASD purports to address—is even more apparent when we consider the myriad harms incurred by communities of color. In addition, while LASD and other policing agencies often defend their practices as integral to increasing public safety, the ironic reality is that their tactics have been shown to have a direct negative effect on various measures of wellbeing, including an increased likelihood of future involvement in criminal activities. Individuals experience acute physical and psychological harm from policing. With respect to the physical, we would be remiss not to mention that in 2019, LASD reported 22 deputy-involved shootings, 13 of which were fatal.70 In 2020, it reported 25 deputy-involved shootings, 17 of which were fatal.71 These numbers exclude other deaths while in LASD custody, including deaths caused by deputies’ use of other types of force such as tasers,72 and do not include incidents of physical force that do not involve firearms.73 Any police stop is not a trivial encounter, and it can have a deleterious effect on the mental health of the person stopped. Even when an encounter with LASD does not culminate in deadly force—or involve any force at all—it can still have a lasting detrimental effect, especially for Black Angelenos. Scholars studying the public health effects of racially discriminatory policing have observed a wide range of negative impacts on Black Americans, including injuries arising from violent confrontations and adverse health consequences caused by experiencing perceived threats or vicarious harm.74 Among this research are studies showing that people subject to policing show an increase in sleep deprivation, social stigma, and posttraumatic stress.75 People who have more police contact also experience greater anxiety and display more signs of trauma, with more frequent and more intrusive stops resulting in even higher anxiety and greater frequency of PTSD symptoms.76 A study of Black individuals confirmed that merely seeing police leads to increased anxiety, and that police encounters correlate to increases in anxiety, distress, depression, and trauma.77 Moreover, Black people who “experience police mistreatment are at increased risk of a range of negative psychological effects, including higher levels of suicidal ideation, paranoia, anxiety disorders, and post-traumatic stress, as well as negative physiological effects including premature aging and cardiovascular disease.”78 Further research shows that the more “assaultive” a police contact is (i.e., whether the contact led to physical THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 24 violence, harassment, or neglect), the more intense and longer-lasting the psychological consequences on the individual will be.79 Further, the protective steps that individuals take to avoid negative and unnecessary police encounters—from being stopped or questioned when merely standing in a public place to being pushed or having a gun pointed at them by an officer—additionally cause harm. For instance, a study of young Black men aged 18 to 44 demonstrated that when individuals forced themselves to alter their routines or engage in protective conduct to avoid police contact, such as not going outside or not traveling in a car with male friends, it increased their likelihood of experiencing symptoms associated with depression.80 Thus, even when not actively being stopped by police, the pervasiveness of police stops and the fear of future harassment have a deleterious effect on the mental health of the Black people who are frequently and disproportionately the subject of police action, and who live in communities where these actions are common.81 The impact of aggressive, or “proactive,” police tactics is felt throughout the community—impacting the social fabric of the community and the wellbeing of community members. A study of New York residents during the stop-and-frisk era concluded that the city’s culture of police surveillance was a public health issue because it created a community-wide high-stress environment and led to decreased community activities.82 Another study focused on a Baltimore neighborhood with high arrest rates found that police presence contributes to community fragmentation and leads to worse health outcomes within communities.83 Residents described the chilling effect that police presence in their neighborhood had on community activities, dissuading them from spending time in public places.84 This fragmentation causes chronic stress and is associated with poor health outcomes on a community level.85 Communities that are aggressively policed show greater levels of distress— both as a result of the hypervigilance expended in an attempt to avoid being targeted and because such treatment is observed and experienced by the community as unfair or discriminatory.86 Communities with higher rates of stops and searches and uses of force display higher levels of non-specific psychological distress (including feelings or nervousness and worthlessness), especially among men.87 Communities with high incarceration rates also show higher levels of depression, anxiety, and asthma.88 THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 25 Finally, the effect of police stops may be even more significant for youth. “Such encounters are pivotal life events that can have repercussions for the mental health of the stopped youth . . . [and] [t]he stress related to police stops may even exacerbate pre-existing stress and can be particularly elevated in cases where stops are violent, intrusive and/ or result in physical injury. Moreover, individuals subjected to police officer intrusiveness during a previous encounter may fear being stopped again at a later point, thereby prolonging stress related to the anticipation of future stops.”89 Both vicarious and direct exposure to police stops were associated with sleep deprivation and low sleep quality for youth, which are both significant hazards to adolescent health and development and linked to depression, obesity, and heightened risk-taking, as well as delinquency.90 Indeed, another study observed that actual delinquent behavior was less likely to predict future delinquency than was being stopped by the police.91 In other words, “prior law-abiding behaviors did not protect boys against future police stops, yet being stopped by police was associated with increased engagement in delinquent behavior.”92 The study found that in part because of the psychological stress caused by the stop, as well as the practical effect of being “labeled” criminal by the act of being stopped by police, these stops actually contributed to future delinquent behavior rather than prevented it. Arrests, unsurprisingly, can have additional negative effects on an individual’s wellbeing. People face costly financial harm as a result of their contact with the police, in addition to devastating psychological harms. There are several measures of the economic costs to individuals who are arrested and detained—even pretrial—or incarcerated. For instance, one study estimates that detained people lose income at a rate of $85 per day.93 Additionally, 23% of individuals detained based on a misdemeanor charge will lose approximately $1,565 because of forfeited or new deposits for housing as a result of their detention.94 Crucially, these costs are often incurred regardless of whether the individual is actually convicted, or even charged. For instance, in one year in Los Angeles County, over 23% of individuals who initially had charges filed against them ultimately had all charges dropped by the District Attorney, and nearly 60% had more than half of their charges dropped.95 The dismissal rate of charges was 49% for felonies, 51% for misdemeanors, and 64% for infractions.96 This means that over 61,000 “legally innocent people had their lives disrupted by being brought into criminal proceedings... only to have all of their charges dropped.”97 These individuals may still bear many of these costs of detention and incarceration despite never having been convicted of any crime. 49% of felonies are dismissed 51% of misdemeanors are dismissed 64% of infractions are dismissed over 61,000 legally innocent people have had to endure criminal proceedings THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 26 Losses persist even beyond the length of a person’s detention: studies demonstrate that having an arrest over the course of a person’s lifetime “dims the employment prospects more than any other employment-related characteristic,” with employers significantly less likely to hire an individual who admitted to any criminal justice involvement, whether it was spending time in prison or jail, currently being under supervised release, or simply ever having been arrested, regardless of outcome.98 Individuals who have spent time in prison suffer significant economic harm, with their annual earnings reduced by an average of 52%, but even those who are convicted of misdemeanors will still see their annual earnings reduced by an average of 16%.99 Further, past incarceration was found to reduce an employed individual’s annual employment by 9 weeks.100 Black and Latine people experience these economic consequences even more acutely. One survey found that formerly incarcerated Black and Latine workers saw wage reduction at twice the rate of white workers.101 These losses continue far into the future: according to one survey, more than 60% of formerly incarcerated people remain unemployed even one year after release, 26% after 5 years.102 Only 40% were working full time after 5 years of release.103 Finally, contact with the criminal-legal system can have devastating consequences on immigrants in our community. Certain arrests and convictions can make immigrants ineligible for permanent residency or citizenship and can place them in the deportation pipeline. For example, in 2019 LASD reported transfers of 467 people from county jails to ICE custody upon completion of their sentences.104 These intertwined systems work a cruel double punishment on community members who face immigration consequences in addition to all the other harm stemming from their arrests. Thus, the cost of aggressive policing tactics, such as LASD’s “proactive” policing strategies that involve conducting a high number of stops for the purpose of discovering more serious crime, must include the impact to the individual and community that results from being the subject of these policing activities. THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 27 As the County develops its annual budgets, we urge the Board of Supervisors not to continue to pour billions into the ineffective and harmful LASD. THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 28 III. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department wastes billions of County dollars harassing Angelenos—especially Black people and other people of color—via deputy-initiated traffic stops. Contrary to the popular narrative that law enforcement keeps communities safe from violent crime, LASD overwhelmingly targets community members on suspicion of, at most, traffic violations or infractions and misdemeanors. The Department’s time allocation and clearance rates demonstrate that it does not prioritize responding to Angeleno’s actual requests for help or solving more serious crime. And the costs of policing do not stop with LASD’s already-massive budget. It also includes expenses incurred by other County actors such as attorneys in offices of both the District Attorney and Public Defender, maintenance of the LA County jail system where many of those detained on minor violations are housed, settlements arising from deputy misconduct occurring during these stops, and the mental, physical, and financial toll on individuals and communities that are policed. In this way, LASD’s policing practices are not just wasteful, they are actively harmful— they drain the County’s coffers while damaging the financial, physical, social, and psychological health of Los Angeles County residents and leaving the County unable to fund the supportive services needed to address those harms. As the County develops its annual budgets, we therefore urge the Board of Supervisors not to continue to pour billions into the ineffective and harmful LASD. Instead, the County should invest in services and infrastructure that can directly and meaningfully improve the quality of life and safety of Los Angeles residents. Studies have shown that a reduction in policing budgets primarily impacts an agency’s ability to devote substantial hours to the unproductive policing activities that constitute the bulk of LASD patrol deputies’ time.105 As policing agencies receive more money, they arrest more people for low-level offenses; as their budgets shrink, they make fewer misdemeanor arrests, without a significant impact on felony arrests.106 This study and others continue to demonstrate what Los Angeles County has already acknowledged107 —that a public safety approach that increases contacts with the criminal legal system, including by facilitating stops, searches, and misdemeanor arrests, actually generates crime, and that a true investment in public safety requires investing in “strategies that improve community safety by minimizing contact with law enforcement and directing people to health services instead of jail.”108 The County should dramatically reduce the funding invested into LASD. Combined with this reduction, it should look to its own Alternatives to Incarceration roadmap, which already reflects the County’s stated commitment to investing in the services and structures that meet community- and individual-level needs prior to any engagement with the criminal legal system. It should additionally seek input from advocates, organizations, impacted individuals, and professionals who have identified more productive uses of the County’s finite budget. THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 29 RECOMMENDATIONS 1 Shift traffic safety functions away from law enforcement and place authority instead with unarmed civilian county employees. • 2 3 Any remaining traffic enforcement should be vested with civilian employees to the extent possible under state law, and the County should additionally support legislation at the state level to eliminate any remaining legal barriers. Remove deputies’ authority to stop individuals not engaged in activities that pose a significant threat to public safety. • This includes decriminalizing bicycling activities and equipment violations, and executing the recommendations set forth in the Los Angeles County CEO’s report back on decriminalizing mobility.109 • This also includes adopting policies restricting deputies from stopping, detaining, or arresting drivers, bicyclists, and pedestrians for certain safety equipment and low-level traffic violations, as recommended by the Office of Inspector General.110 • This also includes adopting policies prohibiting LASD from conducting pretextual investigations, consent searches, and pretextual inquiries into probation or parole, and not policies that merely purport to limit their use and continue to allow the officers to exercise substantial discretion, such as the policy recently adopted by the LAPD.111 Improve transit safety and justice by investing in community-based care infrastructure. • This includes supporting implementation of the infrastructure, design, and roadway safety enhancement elements of the Vision Zero Action Plan, an initiative to eliminate traffic-related fatalities in Los Angeles County. This should include investing in traffic safety enhancements like speed bumps, protected bikeways, and clear street markings that prevent speeding and keep motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians safe while minimizing the overwhelming economic impact of excessive fees extracted from low-income Angelenos of color,112 and fast-tracking resources to the Department of Public Health to analyze road injuries and deaths to better identify and deploy those elements. • This also includes ensuring that state and federal traffic safety grants are applied for and allocated to agencies like the Departments of Public Health and Public Works or to community-based organizations promoting traffic safety education rather than the Sheriff’s department. THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 30 4 5 Address public health needs with trained and well-resourced experts, not law enforcement. • This includes empowering non-law-enforcement specialists to address social issues currently within the ambit of LASD, including by shifting funding away from LASD’s HOST team to effectively resource housing and social workers to support unhoused Angelenos, and shifting crisis response to mental health specialists and community-based organizations to support people with behavioral or mental health needs.114 • This also includes removing LASD from care settings, especially the substations at LA County hospitals. Resources supporting these substations should instead be invested in expanding community- and hospital-based non-law enforcement crisis response and intervention. • Finally, this also includes ending policies and practices that criminalize patients and protecting those seeking care from law enforcement intervention, violence, and abuse.115 Support state legislation that is consistent with the goals of limiting or eliminating unnecessary police contacts. • This includes putting the weight of Los Angeles County behind supporting—and ultimately implementing—currently-proposed legislation that would prohibit baseless searches based solely on alleged consent (AB 93-Bryan) or limit law enforcement ability to conduct pretextual traffic stops. IV. ENDNOTES THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 31 1 “Latine” is a gender-inclusive term used in this report to replace the terms “Latina(s),” “Latino(s),” “Latinx(s),” and “Hispanic.” 2 A “stop” for purposes of the RIPA data is defined as an interaction in which a peace officer detains an individual such that they are not free to leave, or conducts a search. 11 CCR 999.224(a)(7), (14). 3 Catalyst California and ACLU of Southern California, “Reimagining Community Safety in California,” October 2022, at p. 14, available at https://catalyst-ca.cdn.prismic.io/catalyst-ca/126c30a8852c-416a-b8a7-55a90c77a04e_APCA+ACLU+REIMAGINING+COMMUNITY+SAFETY+2022_5. pdf (last accessed February 4, 2023) [hereinafter Reimagining Community Safety]. For a full discussion of the methodology used in these reports, see the appendix, available at https:// catalyst-ca.cdn.prismic.io/catalyst-ca/daec1d0a-4637-4e85-8264-d1ae1102ebc0_APPENDIX_ Catalyst+California+%26+ACLU+REIMAGINING+COMMUNITY+SAFETY+2022.pdf. 4 Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Mission Statement, available at https://lasd.org/ mission-statement/ (last accessed January 28, 2023). 5 During the period in which the data used in this report was collected through the present, LASD has been consistently criticized by community organizations and residents for its failure to be transparent or to hold deputies accountable, in addition to allegations that its deputies have engaged in discriminatory policing tactics. Among some of the most prominent incidents were complaints about LASD’s failure to comply with new transparency laws mandating the release of certain records of deputies’ misconduct, (See, e.g., Alene Tchekmedyian, “L.A. sheriff touts reform despite a record of fighting transparency, civilian oversight,” LA Times, June 15, 2020), the Sheriff’s contentious reinstatement of a deputy that was previously terminated for lying amidst domestic violence allegations, (See, e.g., Maya Lau, “L.A. County sheriff reinstates deputy fired over domestic abuse and stalking allegations,” LA Times, Jan. 15, 2019), and the targeting of Latino drivers for drug interdiction efforts (See, e.g., Rong-Gong Lin II and Ben Poston, “Sheriff’s Department ‘ignored red flags’ about team that stopped Latino drivers, report says,” LA Times, Apr. 19, 2019). 6 Figures based on ACLU of Southern California’s calculations of RIPA data requested from the California Department of Justice (2019) [hereinafter ACLU SoCal RIPA Analysis]. 7 Reimagining Community Safety, p. 15. 8 Figures based on the “Crimes and Clearances (including Arson)” data published by the California Department of Justice, available at https://openjustice.doj.ca.gov/data (last accessed Nov. 7, 2022). 9 Reimagining Community Safety, p. 11. The entire County budget for 2019-2020 was $36.1 billion. Id. 10 Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, 2020-2021 Final Budget, at p. 142 (19-20 actuals), available at https://ceo.lacounty.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/LA-County-2020-21-FinalBudget-Book.pdf [hereinafter LA County 2020-2021 Budget]. 11 Id. at p. 75. THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 32 12 See Gle Holland, "L.A. spent $619 million on homelessness last year. Has it made a difference?" LA Times (May 11, 2019) available at: https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-lnhomeless-housing-count-20190511-story.html; The Los Angeles County Homelessness Initiantiv, Report: FY 2022-23 Measure H Funded Contracts by SPA, available at: https://homeless.lacounty. gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/FY-2022-23-Measure-H-Contractor-Directory.pdf. 13 Los Angeles County Chief Executive Office, “Fact Sheet: Sheriff’s Department’s Budget,” (Oct. 5, 2022), available at https://file.lacounty.gov/SDSInter/lac/1130135_09.19.22UpdatedSheriff_ sDepartmentBudgetFactSheet.pdf. 14 See Reimagining Community Safety, pp. 27-28. 15 This report uses the term “people of color” to encompass the non-white racial categories as designated in the 2015 Racial and Identity Profiling Act and its implementing regulations, at pp. 6-7, available at https://oag.ca.gov/sites/all/files/agweb/pdfs/ripa/stop-data-reg-final-text-110717. pdf. Based upon these regulations, the term specifically encompasses those identified as: Asian, Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino(a), Middle Eastern or South Asian, Native American, and Pacific Islander. 16 See, e.g., Hailey Branson-Potts, Alene Tchekmedyian, “West Hollywood cut a few sheriff’s deputies. It fueled a national firestorm on crime, defunding,” LA Times, July 19, 2022, available at 17 Reimagining Community Safety, p. 14. 18 ACLU SoCal RIPA Analysis. 19 Id. 20 Reimagining Community Safety, p. 16. 21 “Reasonable suspicion” in this context refers to the legal standard that must be met under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution for an officer to require a member of the public to submit to a stop to allow an officer to investigate potential criminal activity. “Reasonable suspicion is defined as a particularized and objective basis for suspecting a person is involved in criminal activity,” and therefore should require an officer to be able to point to specific, objective facts about the circumstances that suggest criminal activity. People v. Parrott, 10 Cal.App.5th 485, 494-95 (2017) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). This is a lower standard than the “probable cause” standard that is required to justify an arrest. 22 ACLU SoCal RIPA Analysis. 23 Id. 24 Reimagining Community Safety, p. 16 25 ACLU SoCal RIPA Analysis. THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 33 26 Id. 27 ACLU SoCal RIPA Analysis. This includes only stops where the deputy provided the basis of the stop and excludes 8,118 stops based on reasonable suspicion where the deputy failed to include this information in the data reported to the Department of Justice. While the basis of these stops is unknown, deputies are even less likely to arrest an individual in these encounters in which they failed to provide a basis for their initial stop. These approximately 8,000 stops resulted in an arrest only 29.8% of the time, as compared to 35% of the time in stops where deputies documented a statutory basis for the stop. Thus, if anything, it is likely that the omission of these stops has upwardly skewed the percentage of stops that result in an arrest for a felony offense. 28 Id. 29 Id. 30 People v. Kus, 219 Cal.App.4th Supp.17, 21 (2013). For further discussion of non-traffic infractions and the impact they have on individuals cited, see Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, Cited for Being in Plain Sight: How California Polices Being Black, Brown, and Unhoused in Public, September 2020, available at https://lccrsf.org/wp-content/ uploads/2020/09/LCCR_CA_Infraction_report_4WEB-1.pdf. 31 ACLU SoCal RIPA Analysis. 32 Id. 33 We have excluded the approximately 8,000 reasonable suspicion stops for which deputies failed to provide the statutory basis for the stop from this count, however the total number of stops conducted in 2019 by LASD deputies submitted to the Department of Justice for all reasons was 196,554. See note 27, supra. 34 ACLU SoCal RIPA Analysis. This includes all stops where deputies provided a single outcome for the stop, and does not include a small number of incidents where deputies included multiple, sometimes-conflicting, outcomes. 35 Id. 36 Back on the Road California, “Stopped, Fined, Arrested: Racial Bias in Policing and Traffic Courts in California,” at p. 11 (Apr. 2016), available at http://ebclc.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/ Stopped_Fined_Arrested_BOTRCA.pdf. 37 “2019 Bookings by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department (2021)”. Community Generated Report, Los Angeles, CA. The Million Dollar Hoods Project, available at https://milliondollarhoods.pre. ss.ucla.edu/lasd-create-a-report/. 38 Id. THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 34 39 Racial and Identity Profiling Act Advisory Board, 2022 Annual Report, at p. 13, available at: https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/media/ripa-board-report-2022.pdf [hereinafter 2022 RIPA Report]. 40 Alene Tchekmedyian, Ben Poston and Julia Barajas, “L.A. sheriff’s deputies use minor stops to search bicyclists, with Latinos hit hardest,” LA Times (Nov. 4, 2021) available at https://www. latimes.com/projects/la-county-sheriff-bike-stops-analysis/ [hereinafter Tchekmedyian, “Minor Bike Stops Hit Latinos”]; see also Alene Tchekmedyian and Ben Poston, “L.A. County supervisors seek to decriminalize bike violations after Times investigation,” LA Times (Nov. 16, 2021) available at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-11-16/supervisors-sheriffs-bike-stops. 41 Tchekmedyian, “Minor Bike Stops Hit Latinos.” 42 Alene Tchekmedyian and Ben Poston, “Why do L.A. sheriff’s deputies stop and search so many bicyclists? Insiders cite culture and training,” LA Times (Dec. 24, 2021), available at https://www. latimes.com/california/story/2021-12-24/bike-stops-culture-la-sheriff. 43 Id. 44 Tchekmedyian, “Minor Bike Stops Hit Latinos.” 45 ACLU SoCal RIPA Analysis. 46 Id. 47 Reimagining Community Safety, p. 25. 48 See, e.g., 2020 RIPA Report, pp. 108-110. 49 Reimagining Community Safety, pp. 24-25. 50 Id. 51 Id. 52 See, e.g., Police Scorecard: L.A. County, available at https://policescorecard.org/ca/sheriff/losangeles-county. 53 Office of Inspector General County of Los Angeles, The Sheriff’s Department’s Underreporting of Civilian Stop Data to the California Attorney General. June 10, 2022, at p. 13, available at https:// assets-us-01.kc-usercontent.com/0234f496-d2b7-00b6-17a4-b43e949b70a2/ee467145-85c7450c-a739-93e1f1d79f78/The%20Sheriff%E2%80%99s%20Department%E2%80%99s%20 Underreporting%20of%20Civilian%20Stop%20Data%20to%20the%20California%20Attorney%20 General.pdf. 54 Reimagining Community Safety, p. 11. 55 Id. THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 35 56 Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, “LA County Sheriff’s Department Employees Are Now Mirroring LA County Demographics,” available at https://lasd.org/lasd-employees-are-now-mirroring-lacounty-demographics/ (last accessed Jan. 1, 2023). Reimagining Community Safety, p. 11. 57 LA County 2020-2021 Budget, p. 214. 58 Reimagining Community Safety, p. 11. 59 Patrol costs are calculated to include the direct costs of patrol duty officers as well as indirect costs for administration, supervision, and other tasks that make patrol operational, as reflected in the Los Angeles County budget. See LA County 2020-2021 Budget; see also Reimagining Community Safety, p. 14. 60 Reimagining Community Safety, p. 17. 61 KCAL-News Staff, “459 guns collected at LAPD weekend buyback events,” CBS News (Dec. 5, 2022), available at https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/459-guns-collected-at-lapdweekend-buyback-events/ 62 Danielle Dupuy, Eric Lee, Mariah Tso, and Kelly Lytle Hernandez, “Black People in the Los Angeles County Jail: Bookings by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department (2019),” Los Angeles, CA. The Million Dollar Hoods Project, p. 3 (2020), available at https://bunchecenterdev2.pre.ss.ucla.edu/ wp-content/uploads/sites/112/2021/01/BlackPeopleinLACtyJail_2019_FINAL.pdf. Booking fees were around $290 in the 2018-2019 fiscal year, with approximately $157 in daily maintenance fees, and around $358 with $172 in maintenance fees in the 2019-2020 fiscal year. Id. 63 This includes all bookings into the Los Angeles County Jail. “2019 Bookings by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department (2021) Community Generated Report, Los Angeles, CA.” The Million Dollar Hoods Project, available at https://milliondollarhoods.pre.ss.ucla.edu/lasd-create-a-report/. 64 ACLU SoCal RIPA Analysis. 65 Justice Equity Alliance, “The Case for Justice Reinvestment in Los Angeles County,” p. 26 (2020), available at https://www.catalystcalifornia.org/campaign-tools/publications/the-case-for-justicereinvestment-in-los-angeles-county-resetting-priorities-resourcing-and-supporting-communities. 66 LA County 2020-2021 Budget, p. 208 (19-20 actuals). 67 Figures based on documents provided by Los Angeles Office of County Counsel in response to a public record act request filed by the ACLU of Southern California. 68 Id. 69 Alene Tchekmedyian, “L.A. County to pay $47.6 million over alleged misconduct by sheriff’s deputies,” LA Times. Nov. 1, 2022, available at https://www.latimes.com/california/ story/2022-11-01/sheriff-department-legal-payouts. 70 Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, “Deputy Involved Shootings - Previous Years,” available at https://lasd.org/transparency/deputyinvolvedshootingprevious/ (last accessed January 31, 2023). THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 36 71 Id. 72 See, e.g., Alene Tchekmedyian, “L.A. County to pay $3.8 million in death of man shocked with Taser,” LA Times (Mar. 15, 2022), available at https://www.latimes.com/california/ story/2022-03-15/sheriff-deputies-taser-settlement. 73 See, e.g., Melissa Hernandez, “Leaked L.A. County Sheriff’s Department surveillance video shows inmate beaten by deputies,” LA Times (July 12, 2022), available at https://www.latimes.com/ california/story/2022-07-12/leaked-los-angeles-county-sheriffs-department-video-shows-inmatebeaten-by-deputies. 74 Laurencin, Cato T., and Joanne M. Walker. “Racial Profiling Is a Public Health and Health Disparities Issue.” Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, vol. 7, no. 3, 2020, pp. 393-397, available at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7231642. 75 Jackson, Dylan B., et al., “Police Stops and Sleep Behaviors Among At-Risk Youth.” Sleep Health, vol. 6, no. 4, 2020, pp. 435-441, available at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32305306/. 76 Geller, Amanda, et al., “Aggressive Policing and the Mental Health of Young Urban Men.” American Journal of Public Health, vol. 104, no. 12, 2014, pp. 2321-2327, available at https://www.ncbi.nlm. nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4232139/. 77 McNamarah, Chan, “White Caller Crime: Racialized Police Communication and Existing While Black.” Michigan Journal of Race and Law, vol. 24, no. 2, 2019 pp. 335-415, 366, available at https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjrl/vol24/iss2/5/. 78 Id. at 366-67. 79 DeVylder, Jordan E., et al., “Association of Exposure to Police Violence with Prevalence of Mental Health Symptoms Among Urban Residents in the United States.” JAMA Network Open, vol. 1, no. 7, 2018, pp. 3-4, available at https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/ fullarticle/2715611. 80 Bowleg, Lisa et al., “Negative Police Encounters and Police Avoidance as Pathways to Depressive Symptoms Among US Black Men, 2015-2016.” American Journal of Public Health, vol. 110, no. S1, 2020, pp. S160-S166, available at https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/ AJPH.2019.305460. 81 Id. 82 Kwate, Naa Oyo and Shatema Threadcraft, “Dying Fast and Dying Slow in Black Space: Stop and Frisk’s Public Health Threat and a Comprehensive Necropolitics.” DuBois Review: Social Science Research on Race, vol. 14, no. 2, 2017, pp. 535-556, available at https://www.researchwithrutgers. com/en/publications/dying-fast-and-dying-slow-in-black-space-stop-and-frisks-public-h. 83 Gomez, Marisela B., “Policing, Community Fragmentation, and Public Health: Observations from Baltimore.” Journal of Urban Health: Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, vol. 93, Suppl 1, 2016, pp. 154-167, 161, available at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26753881/. THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 37 84 Id. 85 Id. 86 Sewell, Abigail A., et al., “Living Under Surveillance: Gender, Psychological Distress, and StopQuestion-and-Frisk Policing in New York City.” Social Science & Medicine, vol. 159, 2016, pp. 1-13, 2 available at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27155224/. 87 Id. at 8. 88 Id. at 2. 89 Jackson, Dylan B. et al., “Police Stops and Sleep Behaviors Among At-Risk Youth.” Sleep Health, vol. 6, no. 4, 2020, pp. 435-441, 435, available at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32305306/. 90 Id. 91 Del Toro, Juan, et al., “The Criminogenic and Psychological Effects of Police Stops on Adolescent Black and Latino Boys.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 116, no. 17, 2019, pp. 8261-8261, 8261, available at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih. gov/30962370/. 92 Id. 93 Baughman, Shima, “Costs of Pretrial Detention.” Boston University Law Review, vol. 97. No. 1, 2017, p. 16, available at: https://dc.law.utah.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=scholarship. 94 Id. 95 ACLU of Northern California and ACLU of Southern California, “(IN)Justice in LA: An Analysis of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office & Recommendations for Justice Reform,” at p. 14 (Dec. 2020), available at https://meetyourda.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/lada-lp.pdf. 96 Id. 97 Id. 98 Decker, Scott, et al., “Criminal Stigma, Race, Gender, and Employment: An Expanded Assessment of the Consequences of Imprisonment for Employment.” Final Report to the National Institute of Justice, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Arizona State University, 2014, p. 53, available at https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/244756.pdf. 99 Craigie, Terry-Ann et al., “Conviction, Imprisonment, and Lost Earnings.” Brennan Center for Justice at the New York School of Law, 2020, p. 6, available at https://www.brennancenter.org/ media/6676/download. THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 38 100 PEW Charitable Trusts, “Collateral Costs: Incarceration’s Effect on Economic Mobility.” 2010, p. 11, available at https://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/pcs_assets/2010/ collateralcosts1pdf.pdf. 101 DeVuono-Powell, Saneta et al., “Who Pays? The True Cost of Incarceration on Families.” Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Forward Together, Research Action Design, 2015, p. 21, available at http://whopaysreport.org/who-pays-full-report/. 102 Id. at 20. 103 Id. 104 California Department of Justice, California Values Act Transfer Data, available at https://dataopenjustice.doj.ca.gov/sites/default/files/dataset/2022-08/SB54%20Transfers%202018-2021. csv (last accessed Feb. 4, 2023). 105 A recent study of hundreds of U.S. cities and towns covering 29 years found a strong correlation between funding levels and numbers of misdemeanor arrests. See Beck, Brenden et al., “The Material of Policing: Budgets, Personnel, and the United States’ Misdemeanour Arrest Decline.” The Journal of British Criminology, azac005, 2022, pp. 1-18, available at https://academic.oup. com/bjc/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/bjc/azac005/6568129?redirectedFrom=fulltext. 106 Id. at 6, 13-14. The authors found that “[w]hen cities decreased their police forces of budgets, both misdemeanour and felony arrests declined, but misdemeanour arrests declined more, meaning police concentrated more on serious crime relative to low-level offences. Conversely, increasing staffing and spending increased misdemeanour more than felony enforcement.” Moreover—just as detailed above—this study found that in these same jurisdictions, police funding brought about a wide range of individual and community harms associated with misdemeanor arrests, including decreased school attendance and difficulties finding employment and housing. See also Beck, Brenden, “We Analyzed 29 Years of Police Spending in Hundreds of Cities,” Slate.com, Apr. 14, 2022, available at https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/04/ increased-police-spending-leads-to-more-misdemeanor-arrests.html. 107 See, e.g., Los Angeles County Alternatives to Incarceration Work Group, “Care First, Jails Last: Health and Racial Justice Strategies for Safer Communities,” p. 10 (“All of the [Alternatives to Incarceration Work Group] recommendations aim to provide treatment and services to those in need, instead of arrest and jail. They describe a cohesive vision for smart and appropriate policies to promote community health and safety throughout Los Angeles County (LA County), focusing especially on providing ‘care first’ to vulnerable members of our community.”), 2020, available at https://ceo.lacounty.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/1077045_ AlternativestoIncarcerationWorkGroupFinalReport.pdf. 108 Id. at 3. THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 39 109 Los Angeles County Chief Executive Officer, “Report Back on Decriminalizing Mobility Through Implementation of the Vision Zero Action Plan (Item No. 21, Agenda of November 16, 2021).” June 24, 2022, available at https://assets-us-01.kc-usercontent.com/0234f496-d2b7-00b6-17a4b43e949b70a2/fdbd19e4-5940-431c-9d93-bba7ca351959/Board%20Memo%20-%20ARDIs%20 Report%20Back%20on%20Decriminalizing%20Mobility%20Through%20Implementation%20 of%20the%20Vision%20Zero%20Action%20Plan_06.24.22.pdf. 110 Office of Inspector General County of Los Angeles, Addressing Racial Disparities in Traffic Stops. March 23, 2023, pp.16-18 13, available at https://assets-us-01.kc-usercontent.com/0234f496d2b7-00b6-17a4-b43e949b70a2/c03d3287-ed83-4191-ac37-c0a8c10bd549/ADDRESSING%20 RACIAL%20DISPARITIES%20IN%20TRAFFIC%20STOPS.pdf. 111 See, e.g. Center for Policing Equity, Redesigning Public Safety: Traffic Safety. Sept. 2022, pp.4-5, available at https://policingequity.org/traffic-safety/60-cpe-white-paper-traffic-safety/file 112 “Race Counts - Reimagining Traffic Safety & Bold Political Leadership in Los Angeles.” Race Counts, May 2021, available at https://www.racecounts.org/push-la. 113 ACLU SoCal RIPA Analysis. 114 “Race Counts - Reimagining Traffic Safety & Bold Political Leadership in Los Angeles.” Race Counts, May 2021, available at https://www.racecounts.org/push-la.. 115 Letter from the Check the Sheriff Coalition to the Los Angeles County Oversight Commission, “Check the Sheriff Coalition Recommendations Regarding the Sheriff and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.” November 18, 2021, available at https://static1.squarespace.com/ static/608642aec0f6531f1411b0a8/t/6196947360a99b3ef490e7f6/1637258358853/11.18.21+CTS +Recommendations+on+Sheriff+%26+LASD.pdf.