Prosecutor says community needs to police homeless camps
When Los Angeles officials decided to toss out millions of citations and warrants in early October, they hailed it as a boon for homeless people. The purge, they said, would “unclog” the court system and stop the cycle of debt and arrests that has made it harder for the poorest Angelenos to land jobs and housing.
Judges with Los Angeles County Superior Court also will continue to issue bench warrants and $300 “civil assessments” for homeless people who don’t pay citations or show up in court, a spokeswoman said.Warrants for scofflaws helped drive the LAPD’s homeless arrests up 31% from 2011 to 2016, a Times data analysis found, and paying for tickets or appearing in court remains out of reach for most homeless people.
“The idea of impacting a hard-to-reach population with a program that could help them obtain work and housing by eliminating this obstacle was all I needed to join with the L.A. City Attorney’s Office,” Lacey said. Feuer pointed out that homeless people have new ways to settle citations without going to jail. In response to a 2016 civil rights lawsuit, Los Angeles Superior Court posted online forms for homeless and poor people to petition for dismissal based on inability to pay. Court spokeswoman Mary Hearn said judges can and do dismiss tickets on homeless people or impose community service instead of fines.
A Times analysis found that, in 2016, the LAPD made more than 14,000 arrests of homeless people, up 31% from five years before. “The reason for that became awfully clear to us. That bringing in poor people who are barely mentally competent, had deficiencies and substance abuse is not a solution,” he said. “We have a behavioral health crisis not only in San Francisco but in L.A. The difference is L.A. continues to enforce.”
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