SACRAMENTO – Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed into law a measure from a Bay Area lawmaker that would decriminalize jaywalking in most cases.
On Friday, Newsom signed Assembly Bill 2147 by Assemblymember Phil Ting (D-San Francisco), which the author has dubbed "The Freedom to Walk Act."
AB2147 lets pedestrians cross the street outside of an intersection when it's safe to do so. It also limits when officers can stop a pedestrian for jaywalking to situations where there is an immediate danger of a collision.
"It should not be a criminal offense to safely cross the street," Ting said in a statement. "When expensive tickets and unnecessary confrontations with police impact only certain communities, it's time to reconsider how we use our law enforcement resources and whether our jaywalking laws really do protect pedestrians."
Ting said jaywalking laws, which were implemented in the 1930s due to the rise of automobiles, are arbitrarily enforced and tickets are disproportionately given to people of color and in low-income communities. His office cited a study of California Racial and Identity Profiling Act data showing Black residents are stopped 4.5 times more for jaywalking than their White counterparts.
The assemblymember noted police encounters that have started as jaywalking stops have turned deadly, including the 2018 death of Chinedu Okobi, who died during an encounter with San Mateo County Sheriff's Deputies in Millbrae. Prosecutors cleared the deputies of criminal charges.
"No longer will law enforcement be able to stop people who are safely crossing the street and burden them with citations and heaps of debt. For too long, our jaywalking laws were used as a pretext to stop and harass people, especially low-income people and people of color," said Zal Shroff of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area
A similar measure introduced by Ting last year passed the legislature and was vetoed by Newsom.
Ting's bill was among several transportation-related measures signed by Newsom in recent days, including a measure to fast track climate friendly transportation projects and a measure to eliminate parking requirements for buildings near transit.
AB2147 goes into effect on January 1, 2023.
Digi59404 on October 4th, 2022 at 03:57 UTC »
This is an excellent change if you're in favor of police accountability and criminal justice reform. Allow me to explain why...
Jaywalking becomes decriminalized; while Unsafe Crossing still remains on the books and enforceable. So there is still a mechanism to charge folks who jump out infront of cars with a crime. However, the criteria is different. Jaywalking means the officer just has to say "Hey, this person was in the street, outside a side walk." It's a very difficult charge to fight, because you have to basically prove you weren't in the street. It also requires very little effort from the Officer to cite, and the DA to prosecute. This means that an Officer can abuse this law, repeatedly, with little concern or regard.
However, Unsafe Crossing requires that the Officer articulate, document, and report exactly why the person being charged was unsafe and violated the law. Without this process, the person charged can request the entire charge be dismissed by the court. If the court doesn't dismiss it for lack of foundation; The DA then has to decide if they have a case and can charge it. If they do, the person has something to challenge in court as opposed to "he was in the road outside crosswalk."
Now, you're going to say "But yes, the person still has to defend themselves." - Which is true if it gets to that point. However, the goal is to prevent it from getting to that place through process. The Officer knows they have to document the shit out of this charge. Which means they're far less likely to levy it against a person. Even if they do, and they charge a person with this crime, now the DA has to decide whether or not they're going to spend the time enforcing this charge. As a DA position is political, and also they would rather not be hounded with BS charges, they will likely not charge a person unless the event is an egregious violation of law. If Officers charge people with crappy reporting and little reason, the DAs will get pissed and push for the Charging Officer/Their Dept to change their policy and charge this less. Which means more scrutiny.
Most things wrong with policing have to do with bad incentives and perverse incentives. This change turns the entire scenario on the head. It de-incentivizes the entire system to not charge people, instead give warnings, and talk to people. However, it also gives them a method of charging people with a crime, if the person did something particularly egregious that a warning would not suffice.
alien_from_Europa on October 4th, 2022 at 02:53 UTC »
It's essentially decriminalized in MA.
https://www.mass.gov/how-to/pay-a-jaywalking-ticket
elbarto359 on October 4th, 2022 at 02:09 UTC »
Prior to this was jaywalking strictly enforced in California?