When the City of Lancaster and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department banished J. to the Mojave Desert, she came close to paying with her life.

Left to fend for herself in the blistering summer heat, J. was forced to tote five-gallon containers of water from the nearest convenience store, which was miles away. Before long, she fell ill with heat sickness and crawled into her tent. Her phone battery ran out of charge, and she began rationing her water. As the days passed, she waited to die.

Like J., most unhoused community members in and around Lancaster must somehow find a way to navigate the perils of the high desert, where triple digit heat in the summer and freezing temperatures in the winter are the norm.

But instead of ensuring that unhoused people have access to life-saving housing and services, an investigation by the ACLU of Southern California finds that city officials’ primary response has been to stop, cite and jail people for being unhoused and banish them to the high desert, where they are quite literally left to die.

Inside city limits, unhoused residents face a draconian police state that is impossible to avoid. Although people who are unhoused make up only about one percent of Lancaster’s population, they represent almost half of all stops by Los Angeles County sheriffs to enforce the city’s municipal code.

As described in our report, “Banished and Abandoned: Criminalization and Displacement of Unhoused People in Lancaster,” most police harassment targets people simply for being unhoused in public. Officers bulldoze encampments, destroying tents and discarding crucial belongings like medication. They target Black people, citing them for resting or camping in public at disproportionately high rates. They tell unhoused people to keep moving if they stand, sit or lie down in public, and issue them criminal citations if they rest in the shade for as little as three minutes. One unhoused resident, a veteran who uses a wheelchair, estimated that police approach him up to 14 times a day. He said the cartilage in his shoulders has worn down because he must regularly wheel himself away from deputies who order him to leave.

If relentless police harassment does not convince unhoused people to leave the city, officers banish them to the high desert in unincorporated Los Angeles County, where, like J., they are far removed from life-saving resources like food, water and medical care.

Once banished, people have limited ability to fight back. Since they are technically no longer city residents, they lose the right to vote in city elections, preventing them from voting for or against the officials responsible for their banishment. “The city left us with no vote and no voice,” said Melissa Ivory, who was banished to the high desert by sheriff’s deputies. “We are like a piece of wind that carries a voice, but it’s not heard at all.”

The law enforcement tactics uncovered by the ACLU SoCal investigation are not only immoral and life threatening; they also violate a number of civil rights, including the rights to due process, freedom of movement and free speech.

J. survived her harrowing brush with death. Her daughter, unable to reach J. by phone, became alarmed and set out to search for her. By luck, she found J.’s tent and nursed her back to health.

But Lancaster and Los Angeles County officials should have never placed J. in danger in the first place. Our local governments must unequivocally reject the forms of state-sanctioned violence described in the report . Instead, we must demand that Lancaster and Los Angeles County officials treat homelessness as a human rights violation and humanitarian crisis.

The report calls for immediate city and county reforms, including cessation of criminalization and banishment, elimination of laws and policies that criminalize homelessness and provision of restitution, compensation for losses and rehabilitation for targets of criminalization and banishment.

Officials should start by immediately meeting the survival needs of unhoused people and treating them with the dignity and respect to which we are all entitled.

District Attorney George Gascón’s battle for criminal justice reform in Los Angeles County, where long outdated policies have resulted in the largest jail system in the nation, had a setback this week that can’t be ignored. 

Back in December, newly elected Gascón announced — just minutes after being sworn in — sweeping changes to the county’s criminal justice system and its overwhelming bias against people of color and people in poverty. His new policies were neither radical nor a surprise — he had openly campaigned against racial disparities in the system and for an end to mass incarceration. But the backlash to his reforms came swiftly. And from his own department. 

The Association of Deputy District Attorneys (ADDA), an organization that represents deputy D.A.s in the county, filed a lawsuit challenging Gascon’s new reforms. And on Monday, a judge granted their request to halt key aspects of the new sentencing enhancement policy.

The enhancements, many of which were born of politically convenient “tough on crime” stances in the 1980s and 1990s, pose rigid sentencing requirements based not only on convictions, but also on circumstances weighed against people who are poor. For example, some sentence enhancements require a longer incarceration if a person has a prior conviction that resulted in jail or prison time. But a wealthy person is less likely to have spent time behind bars, even if convicted.   

According to a 2016 study by Public Policy Institute of California, just under 80 percent of people who were incarcerated in the state had some kind of enhancement added to their sentences. This situation will likely persist barring a Gascón win on appeal. According to the Los Angeles Times, there are currently almost 10,800 individuals in California facing charges subject to sentencing enhancements.

Gascón expected a backlash and is not giving up the fight. “More than two million people in Los Angeles County voted for a system of justice based on science and data, not fear and emotion,” he said in a statement following the ruling, pointing to “a substantial body of research that shows this modern approach will advance community safety.”  

The reforms are critical, especially considering the enormous impact the D.A.’s office can have on individual lives. Although at election time, the position of district attorney is considered “down ballot” from more prominent local posts such as mayor, city council person, or supervisor, the D.A. can have far more direct impact on people's lives.  

In 1940, U.S. Attorney General Robert Jackson (later a justice on the Supreme Court), said “The prosecutor has more control over life, liberty, and reputation than any other person in America.”   

That still holds true today. The district attorney, as the county’s prosecutor, decides:   

• Whether a person is prosecuted 
• What crime a person is charged with
• What crimes to prioritize
• Whether or not the death penalty is sought  

Gascón’s predecessors have used their power to, all too often, give law enforcement officers a pass when it comes to highly questionable police uses of force, including fatal shootings. The new D.A. has instead called for the creation of a police use-of-force review board made up policing experts, civil rights attorneys, and community members to review current fatal cases and recommend past cases that should be reopened.   

He also said his office would no longer seek the death penalty, transfer children to adult court, or request cash bail for misdemeanors and non-serious felonies.  

The ACLU Foundation of Southern California certainly favors these changes and filed an amicus brief on the side of the D.A. in the lawsuit.  

But we are hoping for more, including a clearly defined “decline to charge” list of offenses that should not go through the criminal justice system at all. Included in these would be charges against individuals for actions that are a result of mental health disorders. As noted in the ACLU’s “Injustice in L.A.” report that came out last year, “Prosecuting these charges in a criminal setting does more harm than help to the individuals involved.”   

Handling these cases in alternative ways — such as civil proceedings, traffic court, and community-based programs — would not only likely be more effective, they would also relieve the strain on district attorney resources and save taxpayer money.   

We also call on Gascón to create and implement an immigration policy that would take into account unjust collateral consequences to non-citizens. The law already requires prosecutors to consider those circumstances during plea negotiations, however the D.A.’s office has not developed the policies and trainings needed to make this a reality.   

But the newly announced reforms and the fight against sentence enhancements are a refreshing, promising start.    

Summer Lacey is director of criminal justice at the ACLU of Southern California.