This report explores options for the City of Los Angeles to pursue “alternative models and

methods . . . to achieve transportation policy objectives” without relying heavily on armed law

councilmembers noted that the impetus for this study is a legacy of racialized policing in the City

and twenty-first century policing in Los Angeles. This history is not exhaustive; it is intended to

ground readers in the larger historic and social contexts that inform this report’s analysis and the

In ancient societies, policing evolved to protect the economic interests of the upper classes.

This system was predicated on differential rights based on social status, including

socioeconomic standing, conditions of servitude, property ownership, and gender.

Southern landowners established slave patrols to maintain this system of chattel

slavery. The patrols aimed to control the population of Black Americans by capturing people

attempting to flee the conditions of forced labor, and by maintaining a system of terror that

sought to quell persistent Black resistance.

During Reconstruction, “slave patrols were

access to labor, wages, voting rights,” and limited the movement of formerly enslaved people.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, municipalities began establishing police

forces that resemble modern police departments. However, police were generally not the lead

entity charged with enforcing social norms. In this era, “communities largely policed themselves

through customs and common-law suits.”

The role of patrolling officers in the late nineteenth

and early twentieth centuries largely focused on policing “those on the margins of society:

drunks, vagrants, prostitutes, and the like.”

xenophobic federal immigration laws – namely, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and its

successor, the 1892 Geary Act.

A mixture of racial animus, economic conditions, and the need to quell moral panics influenced

which marginalized groups were on the receiving end of heightened scrutiny. In the latter half of

the nineteenth century, local law enforcers (i.e., marshals and rangers) subjected Native

Americans to “aggressive and targeted enforcement of state and local vagrancy and drunk

codes” at the behest of the Los Angeles Common Council.

the chief of police to force unemployed Mexicans back to work by ‘arrest[ing] all Mexicans

unemployed in the Plaza District, as vagrants.’”

During the Prohibition era, the Central Avenue

district was a predominantly Black neighborhood where “gambling, drinking, prostitution, and

Department (LAPD).

The twentieth century saw the rise of the automobile as a primary mode of travel; with it, came a

transformation in how the public interacted with police officers. In many respects, the ubiquity of

the automobile – and the reliance on armed law enforcement to address traffic safety concerns

was not their job.”

While separate bureaucracies had been created to enforce certain types of

laws (e.g., postal inspectors and secret service agents), “a lack in political will to foot the bill for

yet another bureaucratic entity" meant that traffic regulation would fall on the police.

how police and policing showed up in the daily lives of all Americans.

Despite the lessons gleaned from the Watts Rebellion, the 1990s saw another uprising in

response to police brutality during a traffic stop. In 1992, Rodney King, a 25-year-old Black man,

was brutally beaten and arrested by four police officers and later charged with driving under

after the King trial wasn’t constrained to that neighborhood and was not restricted to Black

More recently, the 1999 Rampart Scandal exposed widespread police corruption in the anti-

Since the launch of this study in February 2022, several developments have influenced the

study’s findings and approach. In March 2022, the Los Angeles Police Commission approved a

policy limiting pretextual stops to safety-related incidents and setting requirements for officers

that pursue these types of stops.

Tragically, incidents of police brutality during traffic stops have also continued during the study

period. In early 2023, multiple LAPD officers held down and tased Keenan Anderson, a 31-year-

old Black man, repeatedly after he sought help from the police following a traffic collision. The

interaction ended in Anderson’s death.

they serve.

Likewise, Anderson's death – one of three fatalities stemming from the LAPD's use

of force in a one-week period – sparked fresh calls for police reform from the Mayor and

members of City Council.

MN

relation to petty offenses or traffic violations.

prevention strategic plan that includes, but is not limited to,

included in the County’s Vision Zero Action Plan in

partnership with community stakeholders:

Service Society

of Justice

(Brooklyn, NY)

and organize around removing jaywalking laws and

enforcement in your community.

leaders/advocates who have recently worked to repeal

jaywalking laws in their region and those who are in the

Project 100

Resource Hub for

In sum, racially biased traffic enforcement is widely prevalent in cities, states, and counties

across the U.S. There are very few case studies that provide examples of transitioning powers

of traffic enforcement to non-police agencies. However, numerous government entities, ranging

from individual police departments to entire states, are moving forward with changes to existing

traffic regulations or traffic enforcement practices. These adjustments in how police act upon

minor traffic offenses, though limited in scale, have been shown to create a larger impact in

counties, and non-governmental entities are finding ways and making progress towards more

enforcement, specifically for the City of Los Angeles. To deepen the case for the City of Los

enforcement using data from LAPD and with Angelenos.

The consultant team also worked with LADOT and LAPD to identify relevant case studies for

further research through expert interviews. Some case study locations were identified based on

the degree or extent of the changes in traffic enforcement, while others were identified based on

likeness or proximity to the City of Los Angeles. Three case study locations were initially

selected as case studies (See Appendix F) for further exploration, including New Zealand;

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Fayetteville, North Carolina

included in the expert interviews, including Berkeley, California and Oakland, California.

Additional details about the expert interviews are described in Section IV.D.

The quantitative analysis focused on a descriptive analysis of California Racial and Identity

Profiling Act (RIPA) data. LAPD and LADOT provided additional data for the quantitative

disproportionately affects people of color and the need to address disparities in traffic safety.

Documenting trends in Los Angeles was a critical grounding component of this study, even with

this background of empirical evidence from national trends. Therefore, the consultant team

analyzed the recent trends, spatial patterns, and racial/ethnic dimensions of LAPD traffic stops

as a critical component of the Traffic Enforcement Study.

rates; and

In addition, the problem statement details how low-income communities of color are

disproportionately affected by traffic violence and how this work is connected to the Vision Zero

Initiative to end traffic fatalities. The statement demonstrates concern about the role of police

involvement in meeting traffic safety goals. Therefore, the consultant team analyzed traffic

enforcement patterns for speeding because increased speeds increase the risk of severe injury

or fatalities.

Overall, this analysis complements and bridges findings from the qualitative data collection

standard set of data that police departments in California must record and regularly provide to

the Department of Justice. LAPD was included in the first wave of police departments required

to submit data and therefore began collecting and reporting standardized data in mid-2018.

The consultant team made an initial data request to LAPD in mid-2022 for the last three years of

RIPA data (2019 – 2021) (See Appendix G for data fields and descriptions). Nearly all this

analysis covers that period. The team also requested and included the number of stops for 2022

and some smaller sub-analyses using 2022 data.

This analysis includes specific components from similar studies of police stops by LAPD and

Martin, and Deepak Premjumar. Public Policy Institute of California

LA

This analysis is not without limitations. First, police stop data are based on perceived

census data. This may limit the findings relative to smaller racial/ethnic categories (e.g. other,

Native American, Pacific Islander). While the consultant team normalized the stops relative to

the population of those racial groups, this assumes that similar percentages of racial/ethnic

police activity responds to calls for service made by residents and other officers. Officers are

distributed relative to these calls and operate in a 60-40 model, where 60% of their time is

responding to calls for service and 40% of time is on discretionary patrol. Because of this

approach, LAPD attests that the increased number of calls for service within South Los Angeles

explains the disparities in police stops by race/ethnicity. The consultant team intended to

incorporate calls for service patterns into this analysis. However, the team needed more

complete data to do so. Only 56-63% of the records within the call for service data on the City of

Los Angeles data portal contained information on the reporting district where the call originated.

The team inquired with the LAPD data support staff to see whether other data with more

complete location information exists but were informed that most data on traffic stops and

refine the analysis or look specifically at the relationship by street.

The qualitative analysis focused on a series of community and practitioner stakeholder focus

groups. These focus groups were augmented by expert interviews with academics and legal

scholars, as described in Sections IV.D and IV.E.

The consultant team conducted focus groups to foster a participatory research model based on

shared learning. The team’s goal with using focus groups was to center marginalized

The consultant team conducted a scan of national and international examples of jurisdictions

implementing or considering traffic enforcement reforms and alternatives (See Section IV. A).

This includes jurisdictions in which police departments have or are engaging in specific reforms

and attempts to reconfigure their departments, training, and associated outcomes.

Upon completion of this case study review, LADOT, LAPD, and the Task Force read the draft

candidates, noting that the focus on police departments and departments of transportation was

too narrow (See Appendix J for the full list of suggested interviewees).

Ultimately, the consultant team scheduled interviews with experts in three of the recommended

locations; none of the individuals interviewed represented police departments. Specifically, the

consultant team spoke with:

violations of immediate concern to public safety, such as speeding. This shift away from

enforcement of non-moving violations overall resulted in a decrease in the number of

investigative stops and the number of Black drivers stopped and searched.

(BerkDOT) which would house an unarmed civilian traffic enforcement unit. Since then,

the creation of this new department has stalled, and the City’s attempts at implementing

In January

2022, the working group established an approach to traffic enforcement that focused on

primary collision factors, or the main causes of collisions. Some community members

have expressed concern that this approach was drafted by a working group made up

primarily of police officers (who comprised 10 of the 11 members) and that some primary

collision factors (such as seatbelt violations) may still result in racial profiling.

abandoned vehicles and crossing guards – from the Oakland Police Department (OPD)

to the comparatively new Oakland Department of Transportation (OakDOT). Parking

enforcement, which was formerly under OPD, has been managed under OakDOT since

the department’s inception in 2017.

tracking and monitoring (See Appendix K for a summary of findings from each interview).

Interviewees emphasized the importance of a more holistic definition of traffic safety that

includes the infrastructure components of Vision Zero and broadens the concept. This

expanded definition would encapsulate a road user’s physical safety during traffic stops and

account for mental health stressors associated with discrimination and traffic violence.

shortcomings in the current Vision Zero framework. For example, Vision Zero does not consider

consider zero crashes to be an important goal, interviewees stressed that this metric should not

be the only marker of a safe traffic system.

Interviewees from OakDOT and UNC added that traffic safety must also incorporate a more

holistic understanding of the impact of traffic violence. This means accounting for the stress that

drivers, pedestrians, and community members experience related to speeding; it should

related to racial discrimination and an individual’s fear of being stopped by police.

Interviewees from the City of Berkeley and UNC also emphasized the need to think about traffic

enforcement from a safety paradigm – that is, the goal of traffic enforcement should be to keep

speeding or running red lights) rather than violations that do not impact public safety (e.g.,

expired registration tags). A UNC interviewee noted that stops for expired registration tags often

function as informal criminal investigations and that police may use them as opportunities to

search a car for contraband. Interviewees emphasized that shifting focus from enforcement to

prevention, through safe infrastructure and social programs, is an important component of traffic

and instead focus on violations like speeding and drunk driving at major intersections.

For

successful reform, interviewees noted that strong internal and external leadership should be

combined with institutionalization (e.g., through formal policy changes or directives that go

beyond a police chief, mayoral, or council tenure) and community collaboration.

Interviewees reported that some cities in North Carolina created Citizen/Police Advisory

Committees (CPACs), or advisory boards made up of police officers and appointed members of

the public, to make recommendations to improve police policy and procedure. CPACs, though,

In Berkeley, the interviewee noted that reforms were largely driven by advocates like Walk Bike

not reform. The City’s community engagement efforts focused on soliciting responses to a

survey, which overwhelmingly supported reimagining traffic enforcement, but follow-up actions

were hampered due to staff capacity shortages.

The Oakland interviewee shared that OakDOT focused on an equitable engagement approach,

primarily reaching out to neighborhoods with legacies of disinvestment and residents with the

greatest distrust of government. The department worked to create structured partnerships with

Interviewees raised legal and legislative challenges that jurisdictions faced; namely, whether

related to automated enforcement.

The Berkeley interviewee explained that the City’s attempts to create unarmed traffic

enforcement. The interviewee noted that some interpretations of state code limit traffic

enforcement cameras, such as California’s former red-light program, are often unpopular. The

income and communities of color, including high fees and privacy issues related to personally

identifiable information. However, if implementing agencies address privacy and equity

State Legislature proposed an automated camera-ticketing enforcement program.

This bill had

support from police unions, but lacked support from transportation advocacy groups, labor

unions, and police reform advocates who expressed concerns around surveillance, fines, and