KPCC:Under pressure, LA schools police chief reassesses school ticketing policies

With the first day of school only a few weeks away, the head of the largest school police force in the country is reassessing the Los Angeles Unified School District's school ticketing policies for the new academic year.

The chief is under pressure to ease up on ticketing thousands of students, especially after budget cuts closed L.A. County's informal juvenile traffic courts last month. That's why, over summer break, he's collaborating with school officials and local student rights advocacy groups to shrink the number of citations issued to students and reduce overall court referrals.

Students can get citations for activities including jaywalking, skipping school, vandalism, or carrying cigarettes. The most popular violation: fighting.

In the last three years, L.A. Unified police issued nearly 34,000 tickets to students between 10 and 18 years old. More than 40 percent of those tickets went to kids who were 14 or younger.