DETROIT JUSTICE CENTER LEGAL SERVICES AND ADVOCACY PRACTICE
TRAFFIC ENFORCEMENT TOOLKIT FOR POLICE THE PROBLEM Because of how laws that regulate traffic make it a crime to be poor, when police engage in traffic enforcement, they often penalize people for being poor, with little or no benefit to public safety. For example, stopping and ticketing people for driving on a suspended license does not actually have a public safety benefit. License suspensions in Michigan are for unpaid traffic debt, which typically only reflects a person’s ability to afford a ticket, but does not have anything to do with whether those drivers are safe drivers. Thus, ticketing someone for driving on a suspended license just punishes them for being poor, but does not actually keep anyone on the road any safer. Likewise,, because poverty disproportionately affects black and brown people, this also means that laws that criminalize poverty have a racist impact when enforced, even if they are not explicitly racist, and there is no racist intent behind how they are being enforced.
THE SOLUTION Local police departments can play a significant role in ending practices that trap poor people in the criminal legal system. By adopting certain policies, local law enforcement can significantly reduce the harm caused by laws that criminalize poverty while saving community resources and not compromising public safety. For example, local police departments could: • Stop ticketing drivers for offenses that do not endanger public safety such as driving without proof of insurance, minor equipment violations, driving without a valid license plate, driving with a suspended license, or other low-level offenses. • Stop arresting drivers for outstanding warrants related to traffic cases, especially where the warrant resulted from a failure to pay or failure to appear for traffic offenses. • For more serious offenses, issue citations instead of conducting arrests when there is no indication that the person poses an immediate safety threat. • Distribute police or city-created, reader-friendly guide to the traffic court system which informs the ticketed person of their rights, including the right to seek payment alternatives if they suffer financial hardship.
Police Have Authority to Stop Enforcing Laws That Do Not Impact Public Safety Police and police departments have broad discretion in how—and even if—they enforce the law.1 This is because police are trusted with making in the moment decisions about how best to promote public safety.2 While police owe a general duty to the public to provide public safety, the police cannot be sued for not enforcing laws.3 This means police departments have the authority to make a range of decisions on how to respond to certain offenses, from the discretion to issue a citation, a verbal warning, or not engaging at all.
Police Departments Across the State and Country Are Declining to Enforce Laws that Do Not Impact Public Safety Police departments across the state and country have used this discretion to not enforce laws that do not impact public safety. In Lansing, police no longer stop drivers for minor violations.4 Sheriffs and police in metro Detroit adopted a similar practice during COVID to reduce risk for officers and the public.5 In states across the country, legislatures have moved to limit enforcement of minor laws with little public safety benefit.6 The furthest reaching example is Baltimore, where prosecutors have stopped enforcing laws related to drugs possession, prostitution, and many other minor crimes.7 Counter-intuitively, this has actually helped reduce crime in Baltimore, by directing people toward the help they need for these issues, rather than the police and jails.8 Police departments across Michigan could adopt a similar approach to these issues, both reducing the negative impacts of the criminal legal system, saving resources, and keeping communities safe.
NOTES 1 See Ross v Consumers Power Co (On Rehearing), 420 Mich 567; 363 NW2d 641 (1984). 2 See MORSE v. SAGEMAN, 431 Mich. 888, 888, 432 N.W.2d 298, 298 (1988) (officers exercised appropriate discretion declining to take intoxicated person into custody despite statute that required them to take them in to custody) 3 Id.; Flones v. Dalman, 199 Mich. App. 396, 403, 502 N.W.2d 725, 729 (1993); Ray v. Swager, 501 Mich. 52, 81 n.71, 903 N.W.2d 366, 381 (2017). 4 https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/2020/07/01/newguidelines-lansing-police-wont-stop-drivers-solely-minor-violations/5357206002/ 5 https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2020/04/michigan-police-relaxenforcement-of-speeding-other-minor-violations-during-coronavirus-pandemic.html 6 https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/ stateline/2020/09/03/police-pretext-traffic-stops-need-to-end-some-lawmakers-say 7 https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/03/26/baltimore-reducingprosecutions/ 8
Id.
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