ACLU & Catalyst California Report Finds L.A. and Riverside Sheriff’s Departments Waste Millions on Traffic Stops

LOS ANGELES – Today, Catalyst California and the ACLU of Southern California released two new reports shedding light on the massive proportion of time that Riverside and Los Angeles Sheriff’s deputies spend on unproductive and harmful traffic stops. Read the full reports: LASD and RCSD.

Based on 2019 data from the Racial & Identity Profiling Act, the reports reveal how the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department (RCSD) and Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department (LASD) consistently devote the lion’s share of the millions of dollars they receive in public funding on ineffectual deputy-initiated traffic stops. These stops for minor issues that pose relatively little to no safety risks far outweigh the time spent responding to community-member concerns around serious crime. In both L.A. and Riverside, these wasteful patrol practices disproportionately harm Californians of color, especially Black people.

“Communities are safe when every person is healthy, secure, and supported,” said Chauncee Smith, Senior Manager of Reimagine Justice & Safety at Catalyst California. “Spending inordinate amounts of time on traffic stops for minor issues like broken taillights and outdated registration not only wastes public dollars but also leads to harassment, dehumanization, economic extraction through fees and fines, uses of force, and death. ”

The report includes the following findings:

LASD

• Out of all the time deputies spend stopping members of the public, nearly 89% is spent on deputy-initiated interactions and only 11.2% of their time is spent on stops arising from calls for service. Most of the time LASD deputies engage the public, they are policing traffic—not intervening to stop violent crime. 80% of all deputy stops concern traffic violations.
• Of the total 188,380 reported stops that LASD deputies made in 2019, only 4,344—or approximately 2% of stops—were for suspicion of a crime that is classified as a felony.
• Deputies recover firearms in less than one-fifth of 1% of traffic stops and recover other weapons at a similarly low rate. This means that less than one half of 1% of all traffic stops result in deputies uncovering any weapons of any kind.

RCSD

• RCSD’s patrol unit spends 87.6% of the hours they spend stopping members of the public on deputy-initiated stops, with less than 13% of their time spent responding to the public’s requests for service. 92% of deputy stops, totaling 83.7% of deputy time, concern traffic violations.
• In Riverside, less than one percent of people stopped for traffic violations are arrested. Only 3.6% of all stops RCSD conducted in 2019 led to an arrest. More than 96% of the instances where a person was stopped and temporarily detained by deputies led, at most, to a ticket.
• Out of 58,292 stops, deputies seized property in 525 (less than 1%), found drugs in 237 stops (0.4%), and seized firearms in only 9 stops all year.

“The Riverside Sheriff’s Department wastes millions of dollars harassing county residents—especially Black people—via deputy-initiated traffic stops,” said Eva Bitran, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Southern California. “Contrary to the popular narrative that law enforcement keeps communities safe from violent crime, RCSD overwhelmingly targets community members on suspicion of, at most, traffic violations or infractions and misdemeanors.”

The report provides recommendations for L.A. and Riverside Counties, which include:

• Removing traffic enforcement functions from law enforcement and placing authority instead with civilian county employees.
• Removing deputies’ authority to stop individuals not engaged in activities that pose a significant threat to public safety.
• Addressing public health needs with trained and well-resourced experts, not law enforcement.

Read the full reports:

Reimagining Community Safety: Los Angeles County: https://www.aclusocal.org/app/uploads/drupal/sites/default/files/lasd_ripa_report_final.pdf

Reimagining Community Safety: Riverside County: https://www.aclusocal.org/app/uploads/drupal/sites/default/files/rcsd_ripa_final.pdf