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*This is a very big deal in policing*: Berkeley, CA just became the first city in the U.S. to replace police enforcement of traffic violations with unarmed city employees. Why this matters: 1/
I'm not here to say this is bad or good, but help ppl understand the implications, which are significant. In policing, traffic enforcement is a *major* means of instrumental policing. Concretely: police stop drivers for driving 57 in a 55 zone, 2/
Failure to signal, etc. Then they may use observations during the stop to further investigate. This might include dog sniffs, questions, consent searches. A huge number of cases--including some of the most important SCOTUS Fourth Amendment cases--begin this way. 3/
Additionally: traffic stops are the most common kind of interaction Americans have with the police. (Go to BJS stats and see.) Now, if non-police employees do the same thing--*THE FOURTH AMENDMENT STILL APPLIES.* But the distinction presumably is that city employees 4/
who are not police a) won't be sworn officers b) won't be organizationally oriented to look for drugs/weapons offenses c) won't have the same "warrior" training many police departments experience. 5/
Just guessing here: but a place like Berkeley will presumably make clear that these employees just issue citations etc. Now: will that reduce tensions in the traffic stop context when drivers/passengers know that the government employee before them is unarmed? Yes, I think. 6/
It does not, however, necessarily mean that investigations still won't start from these stops. IOW, let's say a non-police officer stops you for speeding gives you a ticket, notices drugs in the front seat, and reports you to the police. So, maybe 7/
Non-police enforcement of traffic offenses should be best thought of as a *violence-diminishing factor* in the first instance, rather than the end of criminal cases that arise from traffic stops, at least violence to drivers/passengers. 8/
There are some big policy questions going forward here, including: 1: what are non-police employees conducting traffic enforcement allowed to do/say/report? 2. *How much* enforcement are they allow to do? And how is this related to city budgets? Annnnnd. 9/
3. *Should these non-police employees wear body cameras*--an important question for investigations/safety/budgets. I'll stop for now, but this is a big move in policing to watch--will other departments follow? (Will be writing this up in a longer piece) End/
Since this generated interest, take note: nothing is happening right away. This was a 3am vote for the city to move forward with creating a new department. Going to take time: https://www.berkeleyside.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Item-18e-Rev-Robinson.pdf
