A Study Conducted by Religious Witness
“To Determine the Extent and Cost of the Enforcement of ‘ Quality of Life’ Ordinances
Against Homeless Individuals in San Francisco during the Newsom Administration (January 2004-August 2007).”
HOW COSTS OF ISSUING
'QUALITY OF LIFE' CITATIONS ESCALATES
This is how the process works and why it costs so much:
1. The Police see a homeless
person, cite a homeless person.
• The police officers see and approach a homeless person.
• The officers call in their location on the dispatch log.
• They ask the homeless person for identification.
• They run a warrant check on the homeless person, who has often done nothing
wrong, but is detained for the warrant check.
• Even if there are no warrants, one of the officers often writes out a
citation for a status crime offense.
• The officers often tell the person to leave the area, or threaten to
arrest the person the next time the officers see her.
• The officers then file their copy of the citation with the court.
2. Court paperwork.
• A court clerk enters
the citation in an antiquated computer system.
• The court clerk also schedules the citation for a court date, and sometimes
explains to the homeless person the court procedures.
• The court clerk then prints notices of court dates and forwards them
to Police Legal.
• Police Legal contacts the individual officer who wrote the citation.
• The officer then prepares a police report on the incident.
• The officer sends the report back to Police Legal.
• Police Legal takes the report to the court before the court date.
3. Court appearances
The City pays the following people to be
at every court appearance:
• Court deputy from police department
• 2 court clerks
• Judge or Court Commissioner
4. At arraignment:
• Court clerks call roll, provides information to homeless people or their
counsel about the case, listen while bench officer/judge is hearing cases,
prepare disposition slips, provide slips to the attorneys or homeless people.
• Deputy numbers police reports, correlates them with the calendar, logs
them, provides them to the people in court, listens and waits during the
rest of the proceedings.
• Bench Officer describes potential outcomes of hearings, hears motions,
resolves some cases at arraignment.
5. More paperwork
• Court clerks enter trial dates, find and copy citation and provide to
Police Legal
• Police legal logs discovery requests, sends to officers, officers find
police report and any other information about case, send back to Police
Legal, Police Legal mails to attorney and provides to commissioner, and follows
up if there is any question about the discovery
6. At trial
• The police officers come. They often have to wait 3 hours before case
is heard, as do the 2 court clerks and the court deputy. The officer
testifies and the counsel for the homeless person cross-examines the police
officer.
7. Results
• Mostly, cases are dismissed. Even if the person is convicted and charged with a fine, the homeless person can't afford to pay it. Then the court issues a warrant. The warrant results in an arrest, which in itself is costly, and/or the warrant appears on police records. Thus some people can't pass the standard background checks required for many services like federal housing assistance, SSI or SSDI benefits, employment or even some substance abuse treatment, because they have outstanding warrant.
8. Misdemeanor citations
• Misdemeanor citations are at least twice as expensive because the City pays the DA and the Public Defender. Also the court costs are much higher and the person is more likely to be arrested, booked, and jailed.
Data provided by Elisa Della-Piana, Lawyers’ Committee
for Civil Rights