Study Shows Minorities Are Cited For Minor Offenses At Higher Rate Than White People

A new study has found that black and Latino communities in California are more likely to be cited for minor offenses than white people.

The discovery was released Wednesday by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, which noted that black adults were 9.7 times more likely to be cited for minor offenses than white people. These include minor traffic violations, loitering and jaywalking.

Latinos were 5.8 times more likely to receive citations than whites. The research comes from data between July 2018 and December 2019.

“We spend millions of dollars discriminatorily enforcing these non-traffic infraction laws against black and Latinx people,” Elisa Della-Piana, the group’s legal director, said in a statement. “The fines and fees are largely uncollectable, but the debt burden, warrants and arrests cause significant harm.”

In Los Angeles alone, black people were cited 3.8 times more likely to receive non-traffic infractions.

A rep for police unions in San Jose, San Francisco and Los Angeles, claimed that law enforcement is not biased.

“When it comes to enforcing the laws, we focus on behavior — not color, not race, not creed, not religion and not sexual orientation,” Tom Saggau said to Mercury News.“Police don’t create the laws, and if these attorneys don’t want quality-of-life crimes enforced, they should talk to legislators.”

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