Decarcerate Louisiana

2022 was a record year for registration tickets:

• Tickets for registration have become more frequent every year, doubling from 14% of all citations in 2017 to 28% in 2022
• The unavailability of tag renewals in 2022 didn’t matter
• Some people were ticketed for registration 3 or even 4 times just from May to August—sometimes before they even had their first court date
• almost all of the increased enforcement went to Black drivers—white drivers actually got fewer registration tickets in 2022 than they did in 2021

54% of white drivers’ tickets were dismissed; 24% of Black drivers’ tickets were dismissed. Fines show racial difference as well:
• Black drivers are way overrepresented (and white drivers way underrepresented) in cases that aren’t not prosecuted, yet small fines are assessed anyway.
• Hispanic drivers are overrepresented on tickets with large fines

In 2022, 57% of traffic citations weren’t about safety issues—and the percentage is rising.
• Police traffic tickets aren’t driven by safety concerns. They are driven by tickets and low level arrests.
• Police use the easiest means available, which is to exploit weaknesses in people’s economic status and gaps in legal protections
• This is why we need traffic enforcement transparency from MPD. As of April, they are required to track their own enforcement, and as of October they will be required to publish the results.
• This is why we need to expand the list of pretextual stops that we name as secondary violations.
• This is why we should turn traffic over to a non-police agency.

https://www.actionnews5.com/2023/06/02/mpd-pulled-over-record-number-drivers-expired-tags-2022-80-are-black/