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THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 2

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
AUTHORS
Eva Bitrán
Senior Staff Attorney
ACLU of Southern California
Jacky Guerrero
Director, Equity in Community Investments
Catalyst California
Elycia Mulholland Graves
Director, Research & Data Analysis
Catalyst California
Melanie Ochoa
Director of Police Practices
ACLU of Southern California
Chauncee Smith
Senior Manager, Reimagine Justice & Safety
Catalyst California

DATA ANALYSIS
Elycia Mulholland Graves
Director, Research & Data Analysis
Catalyst California
Jennifer Zhang
Senior Research & Data Analyst
Catalyst California

BUDGET ANALYSIS
Jacky Guerrero
Director, Equity in Community Investments
Catalyst California
Myanna A. Khalfani
Senior Research & Policy Analyst
Catalyst California
Kianna Ruff
Justice Reinvestment Manager

COMMUNICATIONS, EDITING
& ADMINISTRATION
Juliana Castillo
Executive Assistant
Catalyst California
Andrés Dae Keun Kwon
Policy Counsel and Senior Organizer
ACLU of Southern California
John Dobard
Vice President of Policy and Programs
Catalyst California
Jenna Pittaway
Creative Director
ACLU of Southern California
Roxana Reyes
Senior Digital Communications Associate
Catalyst California
Michael Russo
Vice President of Policy and Programs
Catalyst California
Ronald Simms, Jr.
Associate Director of Communications
Catalyst California
Chauncee Smith
Senior Manager, Reimagine Justice & Safety
Catalyst California
Adrienna Wong
Senior Staff Attorney
ACLU of Southern California

COVER ART & REPORT DESIGN
Caylin Yorba-Ruiz
Graphic Designer

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 3

SPONSORING ORGANIZATIONS
This report was jointly produced by Catalyst California (formerly Advancement
Project California) and the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.
Catalyst California (formerly
Advancement Project California),
alongside partners, dismantles racial
injustice and redesigns systems for
access and equity. We do this by
shifting and building power with
movement leaders in communities of
color who are making real change. With
the collective impact of community,
data, and policy, we make the California
Dream inclusive and available to all.
With a mix of audacity, analysis, and
action, we foster justice and create
equitable futures for everyone in our
state. We translate complex ideas about
communities into narratives that inspire
action with the racial equity movement.
To achieve our vision of a world where
justice thrives, we uphold the truth
through deep research, turn policies into
actionable change, and shift money and
power back into our communities.
We are a catalyst for systems
transformation, ensuring that
community-driven action, research, and
policy foster an equitable future. We are
willing to venture into the unknown for a
cause, because to get to where we need
to go, we need to do things in ways we
have never done before.

CATALYST
CALIFORNIA

Advancing Racial Just ice

The American Civil Liberties Union of
Southern California defends the
fundamental rights outlined in the
United States Constitution and the Bill
of Rights. These include the right to
freedom of speech and assembly, the
right to religious freedom, due process
of law, equality before the law, and the
right to privacy. The ACLU SoCal also
relies on state constitutional provisions
and federal and state laws that further
these and similar rights.
The ACLU SoCal is committed to helping
re-envision an approach to public safety
that is fair and free of racial bias, keeps
communities safe and respects the
dignity and rights of all who come
into contact with it. We strive to end
overcriminalization; ensure fair and
constitutionally sound treatment
of all people; remove barriers to reentry;
and increase government transparency
and accountability. The ACLU SoCal
works with community and
organizational partners to reform
California’s community safety
approaches to end harsh policies
that result in mass incarceration;
achieve effective communitybased solutions and opportunities;
and prioritize rehabilitation and
transformative justice over punishment.

100

ACW

SoCal

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 4

PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS
Thank you for providing insight through regional and statewide stakeholder meetings.

ACLU of Northern California

Dignity and Power Now

ACLU of San Diego &		
Imperial Counties

Fund for Guaranteed Income

ACT-LA
AIM SoCal
All of Us or None
Alliance for Community Transit Los Angeles (ACT LA)

Inner City Struggle
Justice2Jobs Coalition
LA Forward
Liberty Hill Foundation
Million Dollar Hoods

Black Alliance for Just Immigration

Pillars of the Community

Black Lives Matter - Los Angeles

Promoting Unity, Safety & Health Los Angeles (PUSH LA)

Brothers, Sons, Selves Coalition
California Black Power Network

Sacramento Area Congregations
Together

California Immigrant Policy Center

Soledad Enrichment Action

Check the Sheriff Coalition

Starting Over, Inc.

Congregations Organized for
Prophetic Engagement

White People 4 Black Lives

Decarcerate Sacramento

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 5

TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. Introduction .........................................................................................................................................7
II. Analysis ................................................................................................................................................10
a. LASD’s Patrol Practices are Wasteful..........................................................................................10
b. LASD’s Patrol Practices are Racially Biased,		
Especially Against Black Angelenos ...........................................................................................17
c. LA County Devotes a Massive Portion of its Budget
to LASD’s Policing of Traffic and Minor Infractions ..................................................................20
d. The Costs to LA County for LASD’s Practices Extend
Beyond the LASD Patrol Budget .................................................................................................22
e. Communities Bear Additional Economic, Physical,
Psychological and Social Costs of Policing ...............................................................................23

III. Conclusion and Recommendations .......................................................................................28

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 6

Continuing to fund policing
practices that are clearly harmful
and ineffective rather than investing
in empowering and solution-oriented
social interventions undermines,
rather than contributes to, our
collective wellbeing.

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 7

I. INTRODUCTION
Communities are safe when every person
is healthy, secure, and supported. Los
Angeles County’s budget—which, in many
ways, is a statement of what it most
values—does not reflect this fundamental
truth. Rather, the County fails to
sufficiently invest resources in programs
that advance those interests and instead
spends an overwhelming amount of money
on its Sheriff’s Department (LASD). In so
doing, the County underwrites practices
that harm people of color and undermine
community safety.
LASD’s largest unit—patrol—spends most
of its time on deputy-initiated stops for
traffic violations, not, as may be assumed,
responding to the public’s requests for
service. All too often, those traffic stops
are for minor equipment violations,
administrative issues, or moving
violations that pose little to no safety risk.
Wasting tremendous public dollars on
traffic stops for missing bike lights,
outdated registration, and other minor
issues is even more troubling because
those stops are often the primary entry
point for a litany of harms, such as
harassment, dehumanization, economic
extraction through fees and fines, uses of
force, and death. These encounters rarely
result in deputies recovering evidence of
criminal activity or arrests for serious crimes.
Instead, such encounters severely harm
the emotional and mental well-being of
people stopped. In communities where
these practices are concentrated (i.e.,
those with higher proportions of people
of color), this devastates public health.
These harms are especially troubling
because the County annually spends

billions of dollars on the LASD practices
from which they arise.
This approach is wasteful and it directs
resources away from policies that have
been shown to improve community
safety—such as investments in
transportation, healthcare, and housing.
But it is also harmful because policing
materially worsens financial and social
outcomes for Angelenos and the overall
public health of the County. This harm is
not equally distributed but is
concentrated in communities of color,
especially Black and Latine1 communities.
Continuing to fund policing practices
that are clearly harmful and ineffective
rather than investing in empowering and
solution-oriented social interventions
undermines, rather than contributes to,
our collective wellbeing.
This report builds upon Reimagining
Community Safety in California: From
Deadly and Expensive Sheriffs to Equity
and Care Centered Wellbeing, a joint
publication by the ACLU SoCal and
Catalyst California that analyzed officerreported stop data2 from California
law enforcement agencies, publicly
available budget information, stories from
community-based organizations, and
public policy research. It found that
Sheriff’s departments across the state
waste public dollars, devastate people
of color, and undermine community
safety.3 This report takes a closer look
at those issues specifically for LASD.
It encourages the County to respond to
real community needs by changing its
funding priorities and allocating funds
to the policies and programs that allow
Angelenoes to thrive.

LASD
Los Angeles
County Sheriff’s
Department

LATINE
A gender-inclusive
term used in this
report to replace
the terms
“Latina(s),”
“Latino(s),”
“Latinx(s),” and
“Hispanic.”

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 8

The County’s Investment in LASD Undermines Community Safety
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s
Department states that its mission is to
“partner with the community[,] [t]o
proactively [p]revent [c]rime, enforce the
law fairly and enhance the public’s trust
through transparency and accountability.”4
While LASD has failed on several counts,5
its focus on "proactive" crime prevention
erodes trust and undermines public
safety. Indeed, the dominant practices
of LASD patrol have been shown to
cause substantial psychological harm
both to individuals stopped and to
communities that are subject to high
levels of policing, extract resources from
the community, and ultimately result in
outcomes that are more likely to increase
participation in crime.
The majority of LASD’s public
contacts—approximately 94% of
stops,6 which accounts for nearly
89% of deputies’ time7 —consist
of “pro-active” or deputy-initiated
stops rather than contacts arising
from requests for service from
members of the public.
This means that the vast majority
of LASD stops are not in response
to members of the
public seeking police intervention,
but rather result from
discretionary decisions by LASD
deputies to engage individuals—
most often for minor 		
traffic infractions.

In addition, data show that even
when responding to criminal activity,
LASD’s effectiveness is limited at best.
Clearance rates, for example, measure
the difference between the number of
crimes a law enforcement agency reports
within its jurisdiction and the number of
cases resolved through arrests or other
means. In 2019, for crimes that LASD
reported to the state Department of
Justice, LASD only cleared 63% of violent
crimes, 53% of homicides, and 10% of
property crimes.8
Historically, local governments
have prioritized investments in law
enforcement and incarceration and
failed to sufficiently support the local
institutions most capable of fostering
healthy and safe communities. This
misplaced approach is reflected in the
budget, with LA County spending over
$3.5 billion on LASD in the 2019-2020
fiscal year—nearly 10% of the entire
County budget—with these funds spent
primarily on salaries and retirement funds
for staff.9 In comparison, in 2019-2020,
the County spent $45 million from the
general fund on homeless and housing
services10 and $71.1 million on affordable
housing,11 which collectively comprise
0.3% of the budget. The County also
collects funds from taxpayers devoted to
homelessness services following voters'
approval of Measure H in 2017, which in
Fiscal Year 2020 totaled approximately
$444 million. The County has typically
spent less than half the revenue collected
through Measure H.12

CLEARANCE
RATES
A metric that
captures the
difference
between the
number of
crimes a law
enforcement
agency reports
within its
jurisdiction and
the number of
cases resolved
through arrests
or other means.

$3.5

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING /billion
9

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To put these numbers in perspective, LA County spent 36 times
more general fund dollars on LASD than on homeless and
housing services.

I

This is extremely troubling because research shows that
investing in the upstream drivers of safety risks (like housing,
education, and economic security) is more effective than
doubling-down on criminalization.

The amount the County has allocated to
LASD has only continued to rise—with the
County approving an LASD budget of over
$3.8 billion for the 2022-2023 fiscal year,
representing a $1 billion increase over the
last 12 years.13

These communities—which are often
most impacted by crime and violence—
also suffer the most from the County’s
decision to invest in police rather than
funding both proven and innovative
solutions to improve community safety.

The Sheriff’s narrative on public safety
ignores both the substantial harm
incurred by people subject to policing—
including not only the direct physical
injury resulting from police uses of
force, but also consequences that arise
from being stopped or arrested by the
police even when the stop does not
involve force. These include the welldocumented physical and mental health
impacts experienced by the individual
stopped as well as those experienced
by members of communities where such
stops are prevalent, economic harms
like lost wages, and other personal costs
like loss of child custody or impairment
of immigration status.14 Because many
of these harms are most likely to be
experienced by people of color,15 and
the Black community in particular, this
popular public safety narrative
enshrines racism as a tolerable
byproduct of policing.

Moreover, the dominant narratives also
ignore the financial costs incurred by the
government and criminal legal system
after police intervene, whether or not a
stop results in prosecution. This includes
time and money expended by other
County offices such as the Office of the
District Attorney and the Office of the
Public Defender, court salaries, the cost
of jail and prison beds, and funds spent
as a result of lawsuits filed against the
County arising out of LASD misconduct.
All of these costs—both human and
economic—must be considered as the
County makes decisions about how to
spend its finite funds to best serve the
needs of its members.

$103

million

DIVERSION &
REENTRY

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$71.1

million

AFFORDABLE
HOUSING

-

$45

million
HOMELESS/
HOUSING
SERVICES

LASD

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 10

II. ANALYSIS
LASD’s Patrol Practices are Wasteful
Most of LASD’s Time is Spent in Deputy-Initiated Traffic Stops
In the media, the Sheriff’s Department
pushes the narrative that having deputies
on the street is necessary to protect
the public from violence, which in turn
justifies the Department’s requests for
greater funding.16 However, the data
shows that this narrative does not reflect
the reality of how LASD spends its
time, and correspondingly, its budget.
Rather, out of all the deputy time spent
engaged in stops, nearly 89%, is spent
on deputy-initiated interactions with
members of the public, and only 11.2%
of their time is spent on stops arising
from calls for service.17

Most of the time LASD deputies engage
the public, they are policing traffic—not
intervening to stop violent crime, as
their popular narrative suggests.
A whopping 80% of all deputy stops
concern traffic violations.18 If we look
solely at those stops that arise out of
deputy-initiated contacts with the public,
traffic stops comprise an even higher
percentage of deputy activity—84.3% of
deputy-initiated stops19 —which accounts
for 79.1% of the time spent on deputyinitiated stops.20

STOP
An interaction in
which a peace
officer detains a
person such that
they are not free
to leave.

CALL FOR
SERVICE
An external
request, such
as from a
community
member.

Figure 1.
Percent of Time Spent on Deputy-Initiated Stops vs. Calls for Service

•••
••

Response to
Service Calls
11.2%

Traffic Violations
Reasonable Suspicion
Outstanding Arrest Warrant
Consent Search
Other

Deputy-Initiated
Stops
88.8%
0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

Data analysis by Catalyst California. Methodology available in "Reimagining Community Safety in California," (Catalyst California & ACLU SoCal October 2022).

100%

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 11

The Vast Majority of LASD Stops are for Traffic Violations, Misdemeanors, or Infractions

The amount of time LASD spends on
stops where the deputy allegedly has
reasonable suspicion21 to suspect a
person is engaged in criminal activity
is truly minimal. Overall, reasonable
suspicion accounts for less than
14% of all deputy stops.22 Within
deputy-initiated stops, only 9.6% are
based on reasonable suspicion.23
Converting those stops to hours, this
acconts for 11.7% of deputies' time spend
on stops that they initiated.24
Moreover, stops based upon reasonable
suspicion are more likely to occur when
deputies respond to actual calls for
service from the public than when they
initiate the stop themselves.
Less than ten percent of
the stops initiated by a
deputy are based on a
reasonable suspicion of
criminal activity.25

In contrast, over 77% of the stops that
arise out of a member of the public
calling to request deputy assistance are
based upon reasonable suspicion.26

In other words, when LASD deputies
are engaged in “proactively” addressing
crime, less than one-tenth of the stops
they are making are based on a deputy’s
suspicion that the individual is engaged
in criminal activity rather than a traffic
code violation. To the extent LASD
deputies actually engage individuals for
whom they assert there is a reasonable
suspicion to think that they may be
involved in criminal activity, that is much
more likely to occur in the less than
12% of stops that arise when deputies
respond to direct requests for assistance.
Thus, their “proactive” crime prevention
efforts are less likely to result in
detecting possible criminal activity than
their responses to the much more limited
set of public requests for assistance.

REASONABLE
SUSPICION
The constitutional
legal standard
that must be met
for an officer to
require a person
to submit to a
stop to allow
an officer to
investigate
potential criminal
activity. It
requires that
an officer to be
able to point
to specific,
objective facts
about the
circumstances
that suggest
a person is
involved in
criminal activity.
This is a lower
standard than
the “probable
cause” standard
that is required
to justify an
arrest.

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 12

Figure 2.
Percent of Time Spent by LASD Deputies on Officer-Initiated Stops

Reasonable
Suspicion
11.7%

3.9%
Outstanding Arrest Warrant
2.1%
Other Reason
3.2%
Consent Search

25,269 HOURS
spent on stops

Traffic Violation
79.1%

Data analysis by Catalyst California. Methodology available in "Reimagining Community Safety in California," (Catalyst California & ACLU SoCal October 2022).

Even stops based upon deputies’
allegations that they suspect someone
of criminal activity do not support
LASD's narrative that they are primarily
involved in stopping individuals engaged
in serious violent crime. To the contrary,
deputies reported that 55% of all their
reasonable suspicion stops were based
upon suspected behavior that, if the
conduct did in fact occur, would only
constitute a misdemeanor—which is a

crime punishable by a fine or no more
than a year in jail.27 And among these
misdemeanor stops, the most common
suspected violations were trespassing
and loitering.28 In addition, nearly 21%
of stops were based upon conduct
that, even if it occurred, would still only
constitute an “infraction,”29 which is “a
relatively minor violation of law, which
cannot result in imprisonment or
loss of liberty.”30

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 13

Figure 3.
Breakdown of All LASD Stops by Reason for Stop

TRAFFIC
VIOLATIONS
83%

REASONABLE
SUSPICION
10%

3%

CONSENT
SEARCH

4% OTHER

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 14

Infractions include behavior like
jaywalking or sitting down in a public
space. LASD most frequently stopped
people for the suspected infraction of
possessing an open alcohol container in
public.31 Thus, nearly a quarter of all stops
based upon a deputy’s belief that a “crime”
may be occurring involve minor violations
that could, at most, result in a fine.
Only 23.6% of reported stops based on
reasonable suspicion were based upon
suspicion of a crime that would be
classified as a felony.32 So, of the 13.5%
of deputies’ stops that were based on
suspicion of a crime, only 23.6% of those
were for crimes that could result in
anything more than a fine or a year in
county jail. Put another way, of the total
188,380 reported stops33 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.
Acknowledging that 2% of deputies’ stops
involve reasonable suspicion of a felony
does not mean that 2% of stops involve
serious offenses. Even if a deputy
contends they suspect that a person may
be committing a crime, this does not
mean that the deputy is correct—there
may be no crime occurring at all. In fact,
only around 35% of all stops based
on reasonable suspicion result in an
arrest, while 20% of these stops result
in the deputies taking no action at all,
not even issuing the stopped person a
warning. Thus, it is not uncommon for initial
assumptions about criminal activity 		
to be incorrect.34

Further, while arrests only occur in
around one-third of deputies’ reasonable
suspicion stops, even these arrests
may be unrelated to any significant
community safety concern. Included in
the 35% of reasonable suspicion stops
that do result in an arrest are about 2,045
arrests—which account for approximately
7.7% of arrests arising from reasonable
suspicion stops—that are made pursuant
to an outstanding warrant. These are
likely to be unrelated to person’s conduct
that led to the basis of the stop.35 This
includes the substantial number of
arrests pursuant to warrants based on an
individual’s failure to pay a traffic citation
or appear in traffic court.
For instance, over a three-year period,
LASD made 4,391 arrests pursuant to
warrants for failure to pay or failure to
appear related to a traffic infraction, and
these arrests were disproportionately
of Black and Latine people.36 Indeed,
the reality of the types of crimes that
drive arrests and incarceration diverges
drastically from the popular narrative
that arrests are driven by violent crime.
The five most frequent charges on which
an individual was booked into LA County
jail, accounting for nearly 33% of charges,
were: drug possession, parole and
probation supervision violations (which
may not involve any activity that would
independently constitute a crime), driving
on a suspended license, and possession
of paraphernalia.37

INFRACTION
A relatively
minor violation
of law, which
cannot result in
imprisonment or
loss of liberty

MISDEMEANOR
A crime
punishable by a
fine or no more
than one year
in jail.

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 15

Figure 4.
Percent of All LASD Stops by Type of Suspected Violation

TRAFFIC STOP 83%

REASONABLE
SUSPICION

10%

4%

3%
CONSENT SEARCH
OTHER

0.3%
5.4%

Misdemeanor

Felony

2.3% 2%

Infraction

Municipal Code
or Unspecified

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 16

LASD’s Use of Pretextual Stops is a Failed Strategy

If we take a closer look at LASD’s traffic
enforcement activities, we see that they
do not further the dominant narrative
that relates policing to community safety.
Approximately 20% of traffic stops
were for equipment violations and a
further 14.6% for non-moving violations,
including expired registrations.38
Further, to the extent LASD uses traffic
enforcement as an entry point for
investigations of more serious offenses,
LASD’s practices still fail to further its
own narrative of public safety. Police
often use minor traffic infractions as a
basis for pretext stops, which are stops
that “occur[ ] when an officer stops a
person ostensibly for a traffic violation
or minor infraction but with the actual
intention of using the stop to investigate
based on an officer’s hunch that by
itself would not amount to reasonable
suspicion or probable cause.”39 Thus,
these pretext stops are commonly not
initiated because an individual’s behavior
creates a public safety concern, but
rather because the deputy wants to
subject them to an investigation for
criminal activity despite the absence of
facts that would legally justify stopping
and investigating them for that suspected
activity. These pretext stops are a
recognized practice within LASD, and
its racially biased stops of bicyclists,
reported in the Los Angeles Times and
addressed by the Board of Supervisors,40
reflect this practice.

LASD deputies were found to “routinely
escalate [bicycle] stops into more intrusive
encounters and disproportionately pull
over Latino riders.”41 An LASD sergeant
admitted that these low-level stops are
not initiated to address any public safety
issue around bike riding, but rather
because they are “looking for guns and
drugs... [and] [t]he more stops you make,
the more guns and drugs you find.”42 The
effectiveness of this approach to crime
is belied by the data, with contraband
found in less than 8% of bicycle stops,
and weapons found in less than onehalf of 1% of such stops.43 Nonetheless,
the Sheriff’s Department “defended the
use of bike stops as a necessary and
legitimate tool to fight crime... [despite]
[t]he low rates of success deputies have
finding drugs or other contraband while
searching bicyclists.”44
LASD’s broader traffic enforcement
practices similarly reflect this tactic of
using traffic stops as a means to discover
evidence of more serious crime; and it
is equally unsuccessful. Almost 97% of
all traffic stops do not uncover any
contraband or evidence of a crime.45
Deputies recover firearms in less than
one-fifth of 1% of traffic stops and
recover other weapons at a similarly low
rate.46 This means that less than one
half of 1% of all traffic stops result in
deputies uncovering any weapons of
any kind.

PRETEXT
STOP
A traffic stop
occurring under
the guise of a
minor traffic
violation but that
provide officers
an opportunity
to investigate
an unrelated
suspicion.

97%
of all traffic
stops do not
uncover any
contraband or
evidence of a
crime.

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 17

LASD Patrol Practices are Racially Biased, Especially Against Black Angelenos
The above-detailed LASD practices are
not only wasteful and invasive, but are
also disproportionately directed at
people of color, particularly 		
Black Angelenos.
Black people in Los Angeles
are policed at higher rates than
any other racial group across
all categories of police activity.

Among self-initiated stops by deputies,
Black people experience the highest
stop rates for stops based on traffic
violations, reasonable suspicion, and
“consensual” searches.47

“Consensual” searches occur when an
officer lacks reasonable suspicion or
any other legal justification to conduct
a search, and requests consent from
the individual to search their person or
belongings. While these searches
should only occur when consent is
voluntarily given, research shows that
people rarely refuse an officer’s request
to search, and that such requests from
authority figures are almost never denied,
even if the subject thinks the request 		
is unreasonable.48

CONSENSUAL
SEARCHES
A search for
which the officer
lacks reasonable
suspicion or
any other legal
justification
to conduct a
search, and
requests
consent from
the individual
to search their
person or
belongings.

Figure 5.
Basis for All LASD Deputy-Initiated Stops by Race
Black

NHPI

2.8

White

1.5

Latine

1.7

Asian

60.6

6.7

58.7

5.6
47.3

5.8
26.1

0.5
0.1

AIAN

1.5
0.4

Two or
More Races

0.4
0.2

0

101.8

17.5

3.1

■
■
■

4.8

Traffic Violation
Reasonable Suspicion
Consensual encounter and search

5.1

20

40

60

80

100

per 1,000 people of same race
As further discussed on page 19, the data on stops involving Latine individuals likey obscures the extent to which Latine people are stopped by LASD deputies.
Data analysis by Catalyst California. Methodology available in "Reimagining Community Safety in California," (Catalyst California & ACLU SoCal October 2022).

120

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 18

Figure 6.
Basis for LASD Deputy-Initiated Traffic Stops by Race
Black

20.2

NHPI

7.3

White

AIAN
Two or
More Races
0%

43.7

9.4
39.2

9.2
9.8

Latine

Asian

50.9

30.4

6.2

30.6

10.2
21.9

2.1
2.0

■
■
■

2.6
1.5
0.8
0.8
0.7

Moving
Equipment
Non-moving, incl. registration

3.6

20%

40%

60%

per 1,000 people of same race
As further discussed on page 19, the data on stops involving Latine individuals likey obscures the extent to which Latine people are stopped by LASD deputies.
Data analysis by Catalyst California. Methodology available in "Reimagining Community Safety in California," (Catalyst California & ACLU SoCal October 2022).

Thus, consensual searches, although a
comparatively small proportion of stops,
reflect police contacts where there is no
factual basis for an officer to believe a
crime has occurred or is occurring, and
officers nonetheless stop the person and
search their belongings or body—and
a disproportionate number of those
contacts are experienced by Black
Angelenos. LASD deputies stop and
search more than 3 out of every 1,000
Black people who live in areas patrolled
by LASD without any suspicion that
those people are engaged in any criminal
activity, not even as minimal as a
traffic violation.49

With respect to traffic stops—which
comprise the vast majority of LASD
activity—deputies stopped over 101
Black individuals per 1,000 for traffic
violations, versus approximately 59
white individuals per 1,000.50 And
while alleged traffic infractions are the
dominant basis for stops of all racial
groups, Black Angelenos are targeted for
non-moving or equipment violations, like
expired registration or broken tail lights.
Approximately 50 out of every 1,000
Black people were stopped for nonmoving and equipment violations, versus
19 out of 1,000 white people.51

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 19

A Note on the Data Surrounding Stops of Latine People
While LASD’s self-reported stop data
reflects significant disparities in the way
that its deputies police Black people
living and moving throughout the County,
it does not appear to reflect similar levels
of overpolicing for Latine people. This
observation is surprising because
analyses of LASD conduct relying on other
data sources, including the aforementioned
reporting on bicycle stops and studies
on deputies’ uses of deadly force,52 have
shown that Latine residents are also
disproportionately subject to LASD’s
harmful policing practices.
An audit of LASD’s stop data
collection practices performed by
the Los Angeles County Office of
Inspector General revealed that
LASD deput failed to report over
50,000 deputy-initiated stops to the
Department of Justice, and that
Latine individuals represented 		
66% of unreported stops.53

Thus, not only is data missing, but these
omissions are not randomly distributed—
they disproportionately conceal actions
taken towards individuals perceived to be
Latine. This report relies on the stop data
reported to the Department of Justice
and is therefore impacted by deputies’
underreporting. Thus, had LASD’s selfreported stop data not undercount
stops of Latine residents, this data—like
others—would have revealed that they
were also subjected to frequent stops
and to stops for minor violations at much
higher rates than discussed here.

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 20

LA County Devotes a Massive Portion of its Budget
to LASD’s Policing of Traffic and Minor Infractions
Los Angeles County spent $3.5 billion
on the Sheriff’s Department in the 20192020 fiscal year.54 Nearly one-third of this
budget—$1.1 billion—was spent on the
patrol arm of the LASD, which conducts
the vast majority of stops.55 In general,
most of the money the County spends
on LASD goes to salaries and benefits to
maintain its staff of nearly 10,000 sworn
deputies and approximately 18,000 other
staff.56 The patrol division is no exception:
the County spent $1.088 billion on
salaries and benefits57 to support its
5,646 full-time patrol positions.58

As stated above, over 94% of deputies’
stops are self-initiated. Of the time spent
conducting those stops, a little over
79% of time is spent on traffic. Using a
one-to-one correlation between budget
and patrol time estimates, an equivalent
proportion—79%—of the LASD patrol
budget is $776.6 million.60 While there is
no way to definitively allocate each dollar
spent by LASD to a specific practice or
outcome, this $776.6 million is a rough
estimate of what the County spends to
allow LASD to conduct its massive traffic
enforcement effort.

When we consider the costs of the
patrol division alongside the proportion
of time that its deputies spend policing
traffic and other minor offenses, we
can estimate how much each of the
Department’s practices discussed above
costs the County. This estimate assumes
that the share of stop time devoted to
a particular issue is the same as that
practice’s share of total patrol costs.59
By doing so, we can provide a rough
estimate of what it actually costs
for LASD to engage in the practices
documented in its stop data. Even this
estimate is likely to be conservative,
because it does not account for costs
incurred outside of the patrol division
such as time spent by those outside of
the patrol division for duties triggered by
stops or arrests made by patrol deputies.

Another way to conceptualize the costs of
LASD’s policing practices is to consider
the total amount that the department—or
more narrowly the patrol division—
requires to operate and to compare
those costs with the results obtained.
LASD does not assert that the primary
purpose of its deputies is to patrol traffic;
to the contrary, it argues that its value
is in protecting the public from serious
crime. However, consider that less than
2.3%—less than 4,500— involved stops of
individuals that deputies even suspected
of committing any activity that could be
classified a felony. If LASD’s purpose
is to address potentially-serious crime
and it requires $1.1 billion for patrol
officers to make approximately 4,344
stops on suspicion of felony activity,
then averaged across the patrol division
budget each felony stop costs 		
approximately $253,222.

10,000
sworn LASD
officers

18,000
additional LASD
staff

5,646
full-time LASD
patrol positions

$776M
rough estimate
of County
funds used to
allow LASD to
conduct traffic
enforcement

$253,222
estimated
average cost of
each suspected
felony stop

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 21

However, the cost to the County to
complete each of these stops may be
even greater. If we consider that LASD
requires over $3.5 billion to function
for one year, and, in exchange for that
funding, its deputies make 4,344 stops
that may involve any possible felony-level
activity, then the cost incurred by LASD
to make these suspected felony stops
is actually $805,709 per stop. Similarly,
the proportional cost paid for LASD to
locate and remove the 470 guns it found
over a single year averages around
$2.3 million per gun found if we consider
only the patrol division budget, and over
$7 million per gun found if we use guns
retrieved as a measure of LASD’s overall
“effectiveness.” In comparison with
other County-level investments in crime
and violence reduction, the County’s
general fund investment in diversion
programs designed to move people
away from the criminal-legal system
for 2019-2020 was $103 million—less
than the County’s investment in LASD to
recover 15 guns.

To put LASD’s efforts in greater
perspective, in 2022, the Los Angeles
Police Department held a gun buyback
event and paid individuals $100-200 for
each gun they turned in and obtained 459
guns—including assault weapons and
guns manufactured to be untraceable—in
one weekend.61 This event that provided
the public with an incentive for removing
guns from circulation obtained the same
results as LASD’s invasive, multi-million
dollar pretext-stop practices for the
entire year, for less than $100,000.

Figure 7.
Percent of Recovery Out of Total Stops

Less than half of 1% (832 stops) of traffic stops
(157,090 stops) recover weapons of any kind.

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 22

The Costs to LA County for LASD’s Practices
Extend Beyond the LASD Patrol Budget
While the above reflects one way to
understand the County’s substantial
investment in LASD’s policing of
primarily traffic activity, this significantly
undercounts the actual costs that the
County pays to support LASD’s practices.
For instance, beyond patrol costs, for
every stop that results in an arrest, the
County incurs additional charges, such
as booking fees and daily maintenance
costs, for all people detained. In 2019,
booking fees averaged around $324 and
maintenance costs $164 per individual,
per day.62
In 2019 LASD recorded
108,266 bookings into its jail,
collectively resulting in over 3
million days in jail—equivalent
to 8,640 years of detention—
with a minimum cost to the
County of $544,444,457.63

While this number includes arrests
originating outside of LASD, in 2019
LASD deputies alone arrested at least
12,429 individuals without a warrant.64 If
each of these individuals was detained
for only a single day, that cost would still
be over $6 million dollars simply for one
day’s worth of booking and maintenance
fees—and many individuals remain in the
jail for weeks, months, or years without
being convicted of any crime.

The 2019-2020 County budget also
allocated approximately $1.4 billion to
operate County jails for one year.65 While
some of the above costs may be included
in this budget item, over $888 million of
this item is allocated solely for salaries
and employee benefits.66

$544M

In addition, LASD deputies often cost
County residents significantly more than
just the cost of their paychecks: in 2019,
Los Angeles County paid over $53 million
on judgments and settlements in cases
arising from Sheriff deputies’ treatment
of members of the public, including those
within their custody in the jails.67 The
County was additionally responsible for
over $12.8 million in litigation expenses,
paying legal counsel to defend LASD
deputies in these suits.68 These costs—
which have not lessened between 2019
and the present—are often directly tied
to deputies’ behavior on patrol.

allocated in
the 20192020 County
budget on jail
operations.

In fact, the County paid nearly
$50 million in December 2022
alone to resolve five cases
involving deputy misconduct.69

Putting these costs in the context of
LASD’s policing practices, which
largely amount to traffic stops unrelated
to any serious criminal activity,
demonstrates the wastefulness of
investing billions of dollars into LASD
as a means of preventing or responding
to serious criminal activity or advancing
public safety.

spent on 108,266
bookings into
LASD’s jail
in 2019.

$1.4B

$53M
paid on
judgements and
settlements in
cases arises
from treatment
by Sheriff
deputies in 2019

$12.8M
paid in litigation
expenses
dedfending
LASD deputies

$50M
spent in
December
2022 alone to
resolve deputy
misconduct

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 23

Communities Bear Additional Economic, Physical,
Psychological and Social Costs of Policing
The error of this approach to community
safety—devoting billions of dollars
to police conduct that is, at best,
tangentially related to the safety
concerns that LASD purports to
address—is even more apparent when
we consider the myriad harms incurred
by communities of color. In addition,
while LASD and other policing agencies
often defend their practices as integral
to increasing public safety, the ironic
reality is that their tactics have been
shown to have a direct negative effect on
various measures of wellbeing, including
an increased likelihood of future
involvement in criminal activities.
Individuals experience acute physical
and psychological harm from policing.
With respect to the physical, we would
be remiss not to mention that in 2019,
LASD reported 22 deputy-involved
shootings, 13 of which were fatal.70 In
2020, it reported 25 deputy-involved
shootings, 17 of which were fatal.71 These
numbers exclude other deaths while in
LASD custody, including deaths caused
by deputies’ use of other types of force
such as tasers,72 and do not include
incidents of physical force that do not
involve firearms.73
Any police stop is not a trivial encounter,
and it can have a deleterious effect on
the mental health of the person stopped.
Even when an encounter with LASD does
not culminate in deadly force—or involve
any force at all—it can still have a lasting
detrimental effect, especially for Black

Angelenos. Scholars studying the public
health effects of racially discriminatory
policing have observed a wide range of
negative impacts on Black Americans,
including injuries arising from violent
confrontations and adverse health
consequences caused by experiencing
perceived threats or vicarious harm.74
Among this research are
studies showing that people
subject to policing show an
increase in sleep deprivation,
social stigma, and posttraumatic stress.75

People who have more police contact
also experience greater anxiety and
display more signs of trauma, with
more frequent and more intrusive stops
resulting in even higher anxiety and
greater frequency of PTSD symptoms.76 A
study of Black individuals confirmed that
merely seeing police leads to increased
anxiety, and that police encounters
correlate to increases in anxiety,
distress, depression, and trauma.77
Moreover, Black people who “experience
police mistreatment are at increased
risk of a range of negative psychological
effects, including higher levels of suicidal
ideation, paranoia, anxiety disorders,
and post-traumatic stress, as well as
negative physiological effects including
premature aging and cardiovascular
disease.”78 Further research shows that
the more “assaultive” a police contact is
(i.e., whether the contact led to physical

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 24

violence, harassment, or neglect), the
more intense and longer-lasting the
psychological consequences on the
individual will be.79
Further, the protective steps that
individuals take to avoid negative and
unnecessary police encounters—from
being stopped or questioned when
merely standing in a public place to being
pushed or having a gun pointed at them
by an officer—additionally cause harm.
For instance, a study of young Black men
aged 18 to 44 demonstrated that when
individuals forced themselves to alter
their routines or engage in protective
conduct to avoid police contact, such
as not going outside or not traveling in a
car with male friends, it increased their
likelihood of experiencing symptoms
associated with depression.80 Thus,
even when not actively being stopped by
police, the pervasiveness of police stops
and the fear of future harassment have a
deleterious effect on the mental health of
the Black people who are frequently and
disproportionately the subject of police
action, and who live in communities
where these actions are common.81
The impact of aggressive, or
“proactive,” police tactics
is felt throughout the
community—impacting the
social fabric of the community
and the wellbeing of
community members.

A study of New York residents during the
stop-and-frisk era concluded that the
city’s culture of police surveillance was a
public health issue because it created a
community-wide high-stress environment
and led to decreased community
activities.82 Another study focused on
a Baltimore neighborhood with high
arrest rates found that police presence
contributes to community fragmentation
and leads to worse health outcomes
within communities.83 Residents
described the chilling effect that police
presence in their neighborhood had on
community activities, dissuading them
from spending time in public places.84
This fragmentation causes chronic stress
and is associated with poor health
outcomes on a community level.85
Communities that are aggressively
policed show greater levels of distress—
both as a result of the hypervigilance
expended in an attempt to avoid being
targeted and because such treatment
is observed and experienced by the
community as unfair or discriminatory.86
Communities with higher rates of
stops and searches and uses of force
display higher levels of non-specific
psychological distress (including feelings
or nervousness and worthlessness),
especially among men.87 Communities
with high incarceration rates also show
higher levels of depression, anxiety, and
asthma.88

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 25

Finally, the effect of police stops may be
even more significant for youth. “Such
encounters are pivotal life events that
can have repercussions for the mental
health of the stopped youth . . . [and]
[t]he stress related to police stops may
even exacerbate pre-existing stress and
can be particularly elevated in cases
where stops are violent, intrusive and/
or result in physical injury. Moreover,
individuals subjected to police officer
intrusiveness during a previous encounter
may fear being stopped again at a later
point, thereby prolonging stress related
to the anticipation of future stops.”89
Both vicarious and direct exposure to
police stops were associated with sleep
deprivation and low sleep quality for
youth, which are both significant hazards
to adolescent health and development
and linked to depression, obesity,
and heightened risk-taking, as well as
delinquency.90
Indeed, another study observed that
actual delinquent behavior was less likely
to predict future delinquency than was
being stopped by the police.91 In other
words, “prior law-abiding behaviors did
not protect boys against future police
stops, yet being stopped by police was
associated with increased engagement in
delinquent behavior.”92 The study found
that in part because of the psychological
stress caused by the stop, as well as
the practical effect of being “labeled”
criminal by the act of being stopped by
police, these stops actually contributed
to future delinquent behavior rather than
prevented it.

Arrests, unsurprisingly, can have
additional negative effects on an
individual’s wellbeing. People face
costly financial harm as a result of their
contact with the police, in addition
to devastating psychological harms.
There are several measures of the
economic costs to individuals who
are arrested and detained—even pretrial—or incarcerated. For instance, one
study estimates that detained people
lose income at a rate of $85 per day.93
Additionally, 23% of individuals detained
based on a misdemeanor charge will
lose approximately $1,565 because of
forfeited or new deposits for housing as
a result of their detention.94 Crucially,
these costs are often incurred regardless
of whether the individual is actually
convicted, or even charged. For instance,
in one year in Los Angeles County, over
23% of individuals who initially had
charges filed against them ultimately
had all charges dropped by the District
Attorney, and nearly 60% had more than
half of their charges dropped.95 The
dismissal rate of charges was 49% for
felonies, 51% for misdemeanors, and 64%
for infractions.96 This means that over
61,000 “legally innocent people had their
lives disrupted by being brought into
criminal proceedings... only to have all of
their charges dropped.”97
These individuals may still
bear many of these costs of
detention and incarceration
despite never having been
convicted of any crime.

49%
of felonies are
dismissed

51%
of misdemeanors
are dismissed

64%
of infractions
are dismissed

over
61,000
legally innocent
people have
had to endure
criminal
proceedings

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 26

Losses persist even beyond the length
of a person’s detention: studies
demonstrate that having an arrest over
the course of a person’s lifetime “dims the
employment prospects more than any
other employment-related characteristic,”
with employers significantly less likely to
hire an individual who admitted to any
criminal justice involvement, whether it
was spending time in prison or jail,
currently being under supervised release,
or simply ever having been arrested,
regardless of outcome.98 Individuals who
have spent time in prison suffer significant
economic harm, with their annual earnings
reduced by an average of 52%, but even
those who are convicted of misdemeanors
will still see their annual earnings reduced
by an average of 16%.99 Further, past
incarceration was found to reduce an
employed individual’s annual employment
by 9 weeks.100 Black and Latine people
experience these economic consequences
even more acutely. One survey found that
formerly incarcerated Black and Latine
workers saw wage reduction at twice the
rate of white workers.101

These losses continue far into the future:
according to one survey, more than 60%
of formerly incarcerated people remain
unemployed even one year after release,
26% after 5 years.102 Only 40% were
working full time after 5 years of release.103
Finally, contact with the criminal-legal
system can have devastating
consequences on immigrants in our
community. Certain arrests and
convictions can make immigrants
ineligible for permanent residency or
citizenship and can place them in the
deportation pipeline. For example, in
2019 LASD reported transfers of 467
people from county jails to ICE custody
upon completion of their sentences.104
These intertwined systems work a cruel
double punishment on community
members who face immigration
consequences in addition to all the other
harm stemming from their arrests.

Thus, the cost of aggressive policing tactics, such as LASD’s
“proactive” policing strategies that involve conducting a high
number of stops for the purpose of discovering more serious
crime, must include the impact to the individual and community
that results from being the subject of these policing activities.

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 27

As the County develops its
annual budgets, we urge the
Board of Supervisors not to
continue to pour billions into the
ineffective and harmful LASD.

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 28

III. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department
wastes billions of County dollars harassing
Angelenos—especially Black people and other
people of color—via deputy-initiated traffic stops.
Contrary to the popular narrative
that law enforcement keeps
communities safe from violent
crime, LASD overwhelmingly targets
community members on suspicion
of, at most, traffic violations or
infractions and misdemeanors.

The Department’s time allocation and clearance
rates demonstrate that it does not prioritize
responding to Angeleno’s actual requests for
help or solving more serious crime.
And the costs of policing do not stop with
LASD’s already-massive budget. It also includes
expenses incurred by other County actors such
as attorneys in offices of both the District Attorney
and Public Defender, maintenance of the LA
County jail system where many of those detained
on minor violations are housed, settlements
arising from deputy misconduct occurring during
these stops, and the mental, physical, and
financial toll on individuals and communities that
are policed. In this way, LASD’s policing practices
are not just wasteful, they are actively harmful—
they drain the County’s coffers while damaging
the financial, physical, social, and psychological
health of Los Angeles County residents and
leaving the County unable to fund the supportive
services needed to address those harms.
As the County develops its annual
budgets, we therefore urge the
Board of Supervisors not to continue
to pour billions into the ineffective
and harmful LASD.

Instead, the County should invest in services and
infrastructure that can directly and meaningfully
improve the quality of life and safety of Los
Angeles residents. Studies have shown that a
reduction in policing budgets primarily impacts an
agency’s ability to devote substantial hours to the
unproductive policing activities that constitute
the bulk of LASD patrol deputies’ time.105
As policing agencies receive more money, they
arrest more people for low-level offenses; as their
budgets shrink, they make fewer misdemeanor
arrests, without a significant impact on felony
arrests.106 This study and others continue to
demonstrate what Los Angeles County has
already acknowledged107 —that a public safety
approach that increases contacts with the
criminal legal system, including by facilitating
stops, searches, and misdemeanor arrests,
actually generates crime, and that a true
investment in public safety requires investing in
“strategies that improve community safety by
minimizing contact with law enforcement
and directing people to health services
instead of jail.”108
The County should dramatically reduce the
funding invested into LASD. Combined with this
reduction, it should look to its own Alternatives
to Incarceration roadmap, which already
reflects the County’s stated commitment to
investing in the services and structures that
meet community- and individual-level needs
prior to any engagement with the criminal legal
system. It should additionally seek input from
advocates, organizations, impacted individuals,
and professionals who have identified more
productive uses of the County’s finite budget.

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 29

RECOMMENDATIONS
1

Shift traffic safety functions away from law enforcement and place authority
instead with unarmed civilian county employees.
•

2

3

Any remaining traffic enforcement should be vested with civilian employees to
the extent possible under state law, and the County should additionally support
legislation at the state level to eliminate any remaining legal barriers.

Remove deputies’ authority to stop individuals not engaged in activities that
pose a significant threat to public safety.
•

This includes decriminalizing bicycling activities and equipment violations, and
executing the recommendations set forth in the Los Angeles County CEO’s report
back on decriminalizing mobility.109

•

This also includes adopting policies restricting deputies from stopping, detaining,
or arresting drivers, bicyclists, and pedestrians for certain safety equipment and
low-level traffic violations, as recommended by the Office of Inspector General.110

•

This also includes adopting policies prohibiting LASD from conducting pretextual
investigations, consent searches, and pretextual inquiries into probation or parole,
and not policies that merely purport to limit their use and continue to allow the
officers to exercise substantial discretion, such as the policy recently adopted by
the LAPD.111

Improve transit safety and justice by investing in community-based care
infrastructure.
•

This includes supporting implementation of the infrastructure, design, and
roadway safety enhancement elements of the Vision Zero Action Plan, an initiative
to eliminate traffic-related fatalities in Los Angeles County. This should include
investing in traffic safety enhancements like speed bumps, protected bikeways,
and clear street markings that prevent speeding and keep motorists, bicyclists, and
pedestrians safe while minimizing the overwhelming economic impact of excessive
fees extracted from low-income Angelenos of color,112 and fast-tracking resources
to the Department of Public Health to analyze road injuries and deaths to better
identify and deploy those elements.

•

This also includes ensuring that state and federal traffic safety grants are applied
for and allocated to agencies like the Departments of Public Health and Public
Works or to community-based organizations promoting traffic safety education
rather than the Sheriff’s department.

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 30

4

5

Address public health needs with trained and well-resourced experts, not law
enforcement.
•

This includes empowering non-law-enforcement specialists to address social
issues currently within the ambit of LASD, including by shifting funding away from
LASD’s HOST team to effectively resource housing and social workers to support
unhoused Angelenos, and shifting crisis response to mental health specialists and
community-based organizations to support people with behavioral or mental health
needs.114

•

This also includes removing LASD from care settings, especially the substations at
LA County hospitals. Resources supporting these substations should instead be
invested in expanding community- and hospital-based non-law enforcement crisis
response and intervention.

•

Finally, this also includes ending policies and practices that criminalize patients
and protecting those seeking care from law enforcement intervention, violence, and
abuse.115

Support state legislation that is consistent with the goals of limiting or
eliminating unnecessary police contacts.
•

This includes putting the weight of Los Angeles County behind supporting—and
ultimately implementing—currently-proposed legislation that would prohibit
baseless searches based solely on alleged consent (AB 93-Bryan) or limit law
enforcement ability to conduct pretextual traffic stops.

IV. ENDNOTES

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 31

1

“Latine” is a gender-inclusive term used in this report to replace the terms “Latina(s),” “Latino(s),”
“Latinx(s),” and “Hispanic.”

2

A “stop” for purposes of the RIPA data is defined as an interaction in which a peace officer detains
an individual such that they are not free to leave, or conducts a search. 11 CCR 999.224(a)(7), (14).

3

Catalyst California and ACLU of Southern California, “Reimagining Community Safety in California,”
October 2022, at p. 14, available at https://catalyst-ca.cdn.prismic.io/catalyst-ca/126c30a8852c-416a-b8a7-55a90c77a04e_APCA+ACLU+REIMAGINING+COMMUNITY+SAFETY+2022_5.
pdf (last accessed February 4, 2023) [hereinafter Reimagining Community Safety]. For a full
discussion of the methodology used in these reports, see the appendix, available at https://
catalyst-ca.cdn.prismic.io/catalyst-ca/daec1d0a-4637-4e85-8264-d1ae1102ebc0_APPENDIX_
Catalyst+California+%26+ACLU+REIMAGINING+COMMUNITY+SAFETY+2022.pdf.

4

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Mission Statement, available at https://lasd.org/
mission-statement/ (last accessed January 28, 2023).

5

During the period in which the data used in this report was collected through the present, LASD
has been consistently criticized by community organizations and residents for its failure to be
transparent or to hold deputies accountable, in addition to allegations that its deputies have
engaged in discriminatory policing tactics. Among some of the most prominent incidents were
complaints about LASD’s failure to comply with new transparency laws mandating the release
of certain records of deputies’ misconduct, (See, e.g., Alene Tchekmedyian, “L.A. sheriff touts
reform despite a record of fighting transparency, civilian oversight,” LA Times, June 15, 2020), the
Sheriff’s contentious reinstatement of a deputy that was previously terminated for lying amidst
domestic violence allegations, (See, e.g., Maya Lau, “L.A. County sheriff reinstates deputy fired
over domestic abuse and stalking allegations,” LA Times, Jan. 15, 2019), and the targeting of
Latino drivers for drug interdiction efforts (See, e.g., Rong-Gong Lin II and Ben Poston, “Sheriff’s
Department ‘ignored red flags’ about team that stopped Latino drivers, report says,” LA Times,
Apr. 19, 2019).

6

Figures based on ACLU of Southern California’s calculations of RIPA data requested from the
California Department of Justice (2019) [hereinafter ACLU SoCal RIPA Analysis].

7

Reimagining Community Safety, p. 15.

8

Figures based on the “Crimes and Clearances (including Arson)” data published by the California
Department of Justice, available at https://openjustice.doj.ca.gov/data 			
(last accessed Nov. 7, 2022).

9

Reimagining Community Safety, p. 11. The entire County budget for 2019-2020 was $36.1 billion. Id.

10

Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, 2020-2021 Final Budget, at p. 142 (19-20 actuals),
available at https://ceo.lacounty.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/LA-County-2020-21-FinalBudget-Book.pdf [hereinafter LA County 2020-2021 Budget].

11

Id. at p. 75.

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 32

12 See Gle Holland, "L.A. spent $619 million on homelessness last year. Has it made a difference?"
LA Times (May 11, 2019) available at: https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-lnhomeless-housing-count-20190511-story.html; The Los Angeles County Homelessness Initiantiv,
Report: FY 2022-23 Measure H Funded Contracts by SPA, available at: https://homeless.lacounty.
gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/FY-2022-23-Measure-H-Contractor-Directory.pdf.
13

Los Angeles County Chief Executive Office, “Fact Sheet: Sheriff’s Department’s Budget,” (Oct.
5, 2022), available at https://file.lacounty.gov/SDSInter/lac/1130135_09.19.22UpdatedSheriff_
sDepartmentBudgetFactSheet.pdf.

14 See Reimagining Community Safety, pp. 27-28.
15

This report uses the term “people of color” to encompass the non-white racial categories as
designated in the 2015 Racial and Identity Profiling Act and its implementing regulations, at pp.
6-7, available at https://oag.ca.gov/sites/all/files/agweb/pdfs/ripa/stop-data-reg-final-text-110717.
pdf. Based upon these regulations, the term specifically encompasses those identified as: Asian,
Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino(a), Middle Eastern or South Asian, Native American, and
Pacific Islander.

16

See, e.g., Hailey Branson-Potts, Alene Tchekmedyian, “West Hollywood cut a few sheriff’s
deputies. It fueled a national firestorm on crime, defunding,” LA Times, July 19, 2022, available at

17

Reimagining Community Safety, p. 14.

18

ACLU SoCal RIPA Analysis.

19 Id.
20

Reimagining Community Safety, p. 16.

21

“Reasonable suspicion” in this context refers to the legal standard that must be met under the
Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution for an officer to require a member of the public
to submit to a stop to allow an officer to investigate potential criminal activity. “Reasonable
suspicion is defined as a particularized and objective basis for suspecting a person is involved in
criminal activity,” and therefore should require an officer to be able to point to specific, objective
facts about the circumstances that suggest criminal activity. People v. Parrott, 10 Cal.App.5th 485,
494-95 (2017) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). This is a lower standard than the
“probable cause” standard that is required to justify an arrest.

22

ACLU SoCal RIPA Analysis.

23 Id.
24

Reimagining Community Safety, p. 16

25

ACLU SoCal RIPA Analysis.

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 33

26 Id.
27

ACLU SoCal RIPA Analysis. This includes only stops where the deputy provided the basis of the
stop and excludes 8,118 stops based on reasonable suspicion where the deputy failed to include
this information in the data reported to the Department of Justice. While the basis of these stops
is unknown, deputies are even less likely to arrest an individual in these encounters in which
they failed to provide a basis for their initial stop. These approximately 8,000 stops resulted
in an arrest only 29.8% of the time, as compared to 35% of the time in stops where deputies
documented a statutory basis for the stop. Thus, if anything, it is likely that the omission of these
stops has upwardly skewed the percentage of stops that result in an arrest for a felony offense.

28 Id.
29 Id.
30

People v. Kus, 219 Cal.App.4th Supp.17, 21 (2013). For further discussion of non-traffic infractions
and the impact they have on individuals cited, see Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights of the
San Francisco Bay Area, Cited for Being in Plain Sight: How California Polices Being Black,
Brown, and Unhoused in Public, September 2020, available at https://lccrsf.org/wp-content/
uploads/2020/09/LCCR_CA_Infraction_report_4WEB-1.pdf.

31

ACLU SoCal RIPA Analysis.

32 Id.
33

We have excluded the approximately 8,000 reasonable suspicion stops for which deputies failed
to provide the statutory basis for the stop from this count, however the total number of stops
conducted in 2019 by LASD deputies submitted to the Department of Justice for all reasons was
196,554. See note 27, supra.

34

ACLU SoCal RIPA Analysis. This includes all stops where deputies provided a single outcome for
the stop, and does not include a small number of incidents where deputies included multiple,
sometimes-conflicting, outcomes.

35 Id.
36

Back on the Road California, “Stopped, Fined, Arrested: Racial Bias in Policing and Traffic Courts
in California,” at p. 11 (Apr. 2016), available at http://ebclc.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/
Stopped_Fined_Arrested_BOTRCA.pdf.

37

“2019 Bookings by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department (2021)”. Community Generated Report,
Los Angeles, CA. The Million Dollar Hoods Project, available at https://milliondollarhoods.pre.
ss.ucla.edu/lasd-create-a-report/.

38 Id.

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 34

39

Racial and Identity Profiling Act Advisory Board, 2022 Annual Report, at p. 13, available at:
https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/media/ripa-board-report-2022.pdf [hereinafter 2022 RIPA
Report].

40

Alene Tchekmedyian, Ben Poston and Julia Barajas, “L.A. sheriff’s deputies use minor stops to
search bicyclists, with Latinos hit hardest,” LA Times (Nov. 4, 2021) available at https://www.
latimes.com/projects/la-county-sheriff-bike-stops-analysis/ [hereinafter Tchekmedyian, “Minor
Bike Stops Hit Latinos”]; see also Alene Tchekmedyian and Ben Poston, “L.A. County supervisors
seek to decriminalize bike violations after Times investigation,” LA Times (Nov. 16, 2021) available
at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-11-16/supervisors-sheriffs-bike-stops.

41

Tchekmedyian, “Minor Bike Stops Hit Latinos.”

42

Alene Tchekmedyian and Ben Poston, “Why do L.A. sheriff’s deputies stop and search so many
bicyclists? Insiders cite culture and training,” LA Times (Dec. 24, 2021), available at https://www.
latimes.com/california/story/2021-12-24/bike-stops-culture-la-sheriff.

43 Id.
44

Tchekmedyian, “Minor Bike Stops Hit Latinos.”

45

ACLU SoCal RIPA Analysis.

46 Id.
47

Reimagining Community Safety, p. 25.

48

See, e.g., 2020 RIPA Report, pp. 108-110.

49

Reimagining Community Safety, pp. 24-25.

50 Id.
51

Id.

52 See, e.g., Police Scorecard: L.A. County, available at https://policescorecard.org/ca/sheriff/losangeles-county.
53

Office of Inspector General County of Los Angeles, The Sheriff’s Department’s Underreporting of
Civilian Stop Data to the California Attorney General. June 10, 2022, at p. 13, available at https://
assets-us-01.kc-usercontent.com/0234f496-d2b7-00b6-17a4-b43e949b70a2/ee467145-85c7450c-a739-93e1f1d79f78/The%20Sheriff%E2%80%99s%20Department%E2%80%99s%20
Underreporting%20of%20Civilian%20Stop%20Data%20to%20the%20California%20Attorney%20
General.pdf.

54

Reimagining Community Safety, p. 11.

55 Id.

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 35

56

Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, “LA County Sheriff’s Department Employees Are Now Mirroring
LA County Demographics,” available at https://lasd.org/lasd-employees-are-now-mirroring-lacounty-demographics/ (last accessed Jan. 1, 2023). Reimagining Community Safety, p. 11.

57

LA County 2020-2021 Budget, p. 214.

58

Reimagining Community Safety, p. 11.

59

Patrol costs are calculated to include the direct costs of patrol duty officers as well as indirect
costs for administration, supervision, and other tasks that make patrol operational, as reflected
in the Los Angeles County budget. See LA County 2020-2021 Budget; see also Reimagining
Community Safety, p. 14.

60

Reimagining Community Safety, p. 17.

61

KCAL-News Staff, “459 guns collected at LAPD weekend buyback events,” CBS News (Dec. 5,
2022), available at https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/459-guns-collected-at-lapdweekend-buyback-events/

62

Danielle Dupuy, Eric Lee, Mariah Tso, and Kelly Lytle Hernandez, “Black People in the Los Angeles
County Jail: Bookings by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department (2019),” Los Angeles, CA. The
Million Dollar Hoods Project, p. 3 (2020), available at https://bunchecenterdev2.pre.ss.ucla.edu/
wp-content/uploads/sites/112/2021/01/BlackPeopleinLACtyJail_2019_FINAL.pdf. Booking fees
were around $290 in the 2018-2019 fiscal year, with approximately $157 in daily maintenance fees,
and around $358 with $172 in maintenance fees in the 2019-2020 fiscal year. Id.

63

This includes all bookings into the Los Angeles County Jail. “2019 Bookings by the Los Angeles
Sheriff’s Department (2021) Community Generated Report, Los Angeles, CA.” The Million Dollar
Hoods Project, available at https://milliondollarhoods.pre.ss.ucla.edu/lasd-create-a-report/.

64

ACLU SoCal RIPA Analysis.

65

Justice Equity Alliance, “The Case for Justice Reinvestment in Los Angeles County,” p. 26 (2020),
available at https://www.catalystcalifornia.org/campaign-tools/publications/the-case-for-justicereinvestment-in-los-angeles-county-resetting-priorities-resourcing-and-supporting-communities.

66

LA County 2020-2021 Budget, p. 208 (19-20 actuals).

67

Figures based on documents provided by Los Angeles Office of County Counsel in response to a
public record act request filed by the ACLU of Southern California.

68

Id.

69

Alene Tchekmedyian, “L.A. County to pay $47.6 million over alleged misconduct by sheriff’s
deputies,” LA Times. Nov. 1, 2022, available at https://www.latimes.com/california/
story/2022-11-01/sheriff-department-legal-payouts.

70

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, “Deputy Involved Shootings - Previous Years,” available
at https://lasd.org/transparency/deputyinvolvedshootingprevious/ (last accessed January 31,
2023).

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 36

71 Id.
72 See, e.g., Alene Tchekmedyian, “L.A. County to pay $3.8 million in death of man shocked
with Taser,” LA Times (Mar. 15, 2022), available at https://www.latimes.com/california/
story/2022-03-15/sheriff-deputies-taser-settlement.
73 See, e.g., Melissa Hernandez, “Leaked L.A. County Sheriff’s Department surveillance video shows
inmate beaten by deputies,” LA Times (July 12, 2022), available at https://www.latimes.com/
california/story/2022-07-12/leaked-los-angeles-county-sheriffs-department-video-shows-inmatebeaten-by-deputies.
74

Laurencin, Cato T., and Joanne M. Walker. “Racial Profiling Is a Public Health and Health
Disparities Issue.” Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, vol. 7, no. 3, 2020, pp. 393-397,
available at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7231642.

75

Jackson, Dylan B., et al., “Police Stops and Sleep Behaviors Among At-Risk Youth.” Sleep Health,
vol. 6, no. 4, 2020, pp. 435-441, available at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32305306/.

76

Geller, Amanda, et al., “Aggressive Policing and the Mental Health of Young Urban Men.” American
Journal of Public Health, vol. 104, no. 12, 2014, pp. 2321-2327, available at https://www.ncbi.nlm.
nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4232139/.

77

McNamarah, Chan, “White Caller Crime: Racialized Police Communication and Existing While
Black.” Michigan Journal of Race and Law, vol. 24, no. 2, 2019 pp. 335-415, 366, available at
https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjrl/vol24/iss2/5/.

78 Id. at 366-67.
79

DeVylder, Jordan E., et al., “Association of Exposure to Police Violence with Prevalence of
Mental Health Symptoms Among Urban Residents in the United States.” JAMA Network Open,
vol. 1, no. 7, 2018, pp. 3-4, available at https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/
fullarticle/2715611.

80

Bowleg, Lisa et al., “Negative Police Encounters and Police Avoidance as Pathways to Depressive
Symptoms Among US Black Men, 2015-2016.” American Journal of Public Health, vol. 110,
no. S1, 2020, pp. S160-S166, available at https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/
AJPH.2019.305460.

81 Id.
82

Kwate, Naa Oyo and Shatema Threadcraft, “Dying Fast and Dying Slow in Black Space: Stop and
Frisk’s Public Health Threat and a Comprehensive Necropolitics.” DuBois Review: Social Science
Research on Race, vol. 14, no. 2, 2017, pp. 535-556, available at https://www.researchwithrutgers.
com/en/publications/dying-fast-and-dying-slow-in-black-space-stop-and-frisks-public-h.

83

Gomez, Marisela B., “Policing, Community Fragmentation, and Public Health: Observations from
Baltimore.” Journal of Urban Health: Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, vol. 93, Suppl
1, 2016, pp. 154-167, 161, available at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26753881/.

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 37

84

Id.

85 Id.
86

Sewell, Abigail A., et al., “Living Under Surveillance: Gender, Psychological Distress, and StopQuestion-and-Frisk Policing in New York City.” Social Science & Medicine, vol. 159, 2016, pp. 1-13,
2 available at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27155224/.

87

Id. at 8.

88

Id. at 2.

89

Jackson, Dylan B. et al., “Police Stops and Sleep Behaviors Among At-Risk Youth.” Sleep Health,
vol. 6, no. 4, 2020, pp. 435-441, 435, available at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32305306/.

90 Id.
91

Del Toro, Juan, et al., “The Criminogenic and Psychological Effects of Police Stops on Adolescent
Black and Latino Boys.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States
of America, vol. 116, no. 17, 2019, pp. 8261-8261, 8261, available at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.
gov/30962370/.

92 Id.
93

Baughman, Shima, “Costs of Pretrial Detention.” Boston University Law Review, vol. 97. No. 1, 2017,
p. 16, available at: https://dc.law.utah.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=scholarship.

94 Id.
95

ACLU of Northern California and ACLU of Southern California, “(IN)Justice in LA: An Analysis of
the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office & Recommendations for Justice Reform,” at p. 14
(Dec. 2020), available at https://meetyourda.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/lada-lp.pdf.

96 Id.
97 Id.
98

Decker, Scott, et al., “Criminal Stigma, Race, Gender, and Employment: An Expanded Assessment
of the Consequences of Imprisonment for Employment.” Final Report to the National Institute of
Justice, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Arizona State University, 2014, p. 53, available
at https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/244756.pdf.

99

Craigie, Terry-Ann et al., “Conviction, Imprisonment, and Lost Earnings.” Brennan Center for
Justice at the New York School of Law, 2020, p. 6, available at https://www.brennancenter.org/
media/6676/download.

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 38

100

PEW Charitable Trusts, “Collateral Costs: Incarceration’s Effect on Economic Mobility.” 2010,
p. 11, available at https://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/pcs_assets/2010/
collateralcosts1pdf.pdf.

101

DeVuono-Powell, Saneta et al., “Who Pays? The True Cost of Incarceration on Families.” Ella Baker
Center for Human Rights, Forward Together, Research Action Design, 2015, p. 21, available at
http://whopaysreport.org/who-pays-full-report/.

102 Id. at 20.
103 Id.
104

California Department of Justice, California Values Act Transfer Data, available at https://dataopenjustice.doj.ca.gov/sites/default/files/dataset/2022-08/SB54%20Transfers%202018-2021.
csv (last accessed Feb. 4, 2023).

105

A recent study of hundreds of U.S. cities and towns covering 29 years found a strong correlation
between funding levels and numbers of misdemeanor arrests. See Beck, Brenden et al., “The
Material of Policing: Budgets, Personnel, and the United States’ Misdemeanour Arrest Decline.”
The Journal of British Criminology, azac005, 2022, pp. 1-18, available at https://academic.oup.
com/bjc/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/bjc/azac005/6568129?redirectedFrom=fulltext.

106 Id. at 6, 13-14. The authors found that “[w]hen cities decreased their police forces of budgets,
both misdemeanour and felony arrests declined, but misdemeanour arrests declined more,
meaning police concentrated more on serious crime relative to low-level offences. Conversely,
increasing staffing and spending increased misdemeanour more than felony enforcement.”
Moreover—just as detailed above—this study found that in these same jurisdictions, police
funding brought about a wide range of individual and community harms associated with
misdemeanor arrests, including decreased school attendance and difficulties finding employment
and housing. See also Beck, Brenden, “We Analyzed 29 Years of Police Spending in Hundreds
of Cities,” Slate.com, Apr. 14, 2022, available at https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/04/
increased-police-spending-leads-to-more-misdemeanor-arrests.html.
107 See, e.g., Los Angeles County Alternatives to Incarceration Work Group, “Care First, Jails Last:
Health and Racial Justice Strategies for Safer Communities,” p. 10 (“All of the [Alternatives to
Incarceration Work Group] recommendations aim to provide treatment and services to those
in need, instead of arrest and jail. They describe a cohesive vision for smart and appropriate
policies to promote community health and safety throughout Los Angeles County (LA County),
focusing especially on providing ‘care first’ to vulnerable members of our community.”),
2020, available at https://ceo.lacounty.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/1077045_
AlternativestoIncarcerationWorkGroupFinalReport.pdf.
108 Id. at 3.

THE HIGH COST OF LOW-LEVEL POLICING / 39

109

Los Angeles County Chief Executive Officer, “Report Back on Decriminalizing Mobility Through
Implementation of the Vision Zero Action Plan (Item No. 21, Agenda of November 16, 2021).” June
24, 2022, available at https://assets-us-01.kc-usercontent.com/0234f496-d2b7-00b6-17a4b43e949b70a2/fdbd19e4-5940-431c-9d93-bba7ca351959/Board%20Memo%20-%20ARDIs%20
Report%20Back%20on%20Decriminalizing%20Mobility%20Through%20Implementation%20
of%20the%20Vision%20Zero%20Action%20Plan_06.24.22.pdf.

110

Office of Inspector General County of Los Angeles, Addressing Racial Disparities in Traffic Stops.
March 23, 2023, pp.16-18 13, available at https://assets-us-01.kc-usercontent.com/0234f496d2b7-00b6-17a4-b43e949b70a2/c03d3287-ed83-4191-ac37-c0a8c10bd549/ADDRESSING%20
RACIAL%20DISPARITIES%20IN%20TRAFFIC%20STOPS.pdf.

111

See, e.g. Center for Policing Equity, Redesigning Public Safety: Traffic Safety. Sept. 2022, pp.4-5,
available at https://policingequity.org/traffic-safety/60-cpe-white-paper-traffic-safety/file

112

“Race Counts - Reimagining Traffic Safety & Bold Political Leadership in Los Angeles.” Race
Counts, May 2021, available at https://www.racecounts.org/push-la.

113

ACLU SoCal RIPA Analysis.

114

“Race Counts - Reimagining Traffic Safety & Bold Political Leadership in Los Angeles.” Race
Counts, May 2021, available at https://www.racecounts.org/push-la..

115

Letter from the Check the Sheriff Coalition to the Los Angeles County Oversight Commission,
“Check the Sheriff Coalition Recommendations Regarding the Sheriff and the Los Angeles
County Sheriff’s Department.” November 18, 2021, available at https://static1.squarespace.com/
static/608642aec0f6531f1411b0a8/t/6196947360a99b3ef490e7f6/1637258358853/11.18.21+CTS
+Recommendations+on+Sheriff+%26+LASD.pdf.