NEW! From the CRC, ACLU and Public Counsel

REPORT: Counterproductive and Wasteful (Feb 2012)

Los Angeles’ Daytime Curfew Pushes Students Away From School and Diverts Resources Away From Real Community Safety

This report – based on a review of scientific research, interviews with and surveys of thousands of students, and data obtained from LAPD, LASPD, and other public agencies – argues that L.A.'s truancy law (LAMC § 45.04 "Daytime Curfew") is a fundamentally misguided policy.

In response to a multi-year campaign initiated by the CRC in 2007 and joined in 2009 by ACLU (Southern California) and Public Counsel, LAPD and LASPD have agreed to modify their enforcement protocols for the daytime curfew to address some of the law’s most deleterious consequences. These changes, reflected in recently issued guidance directives, represent meaningful steps forward.

Nonetheless, serious problems remain. Among other things, the new enforcement protocols are internal guidelines and thus can be revised at any time; they leave substantial discretion to individual officers (for example officers maintain discretion to handcuff and cite students who are simply running late to school); and they do not apply to the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, which also has authority to cite students under the ordinance. The reality is that as long as LAMC § 45.04 is on the books, the potential for youth to be caught up unnecessarily in the penal system remains.

As we discuss in these pages, the time has come to repeal this failed and counterproductive policy and to establish in its place a sensible and sustainable approach for ensuring that children stay in school. 

 Download the report here.

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REPORT: End the Tickets: Alternatives for Youth (2009)

is a collection of reports and documents that reveal the problems of Los Angeles Municipal Code 45.04 and provide alternatives for youth that do not involve the use of tickets, police, probation or courts to address the root causes of LAUSD's 50% drop-out/push-out rate. This collection was presented to Los Angeles Unified School District at the October 20th, 2009 Board meeting as a platform to end the criminalization of truancy, tardiness and other disciplinary issues. It is also an alternative to the Verdugo Hills High model presented at the Board as well. Their approach imposes symbolic tickets and then real citations after the fourth tardy (given on campus, which has been found to be illegal by the courts), rather than focusing on support services and adhering to the district's Positive Behavior Support policy.

End the Tickets: Alternatives for Youth is split into seven sections.

1. Problems of the Los Angeles Daytime Curfew Law: Why LAUSD Must Decriminalize Truancy and Tardiness (CRC. Aug 2009)
2. Creating Alternatives to Daytime Curfew "Truancy" Tickets (CRC. Oct 2009)
3. Sample Drop-out/Push-out Prevention and Truancy Reduction Programs (CRC. Oct 2009)
4. Voices From the Students: Testimonies from Students Receiving Daytime Curfew "Truancy Tickets" (CRC. Oct 2009)
5. Truancy Ticketing as Exclusionary Discipline (CADRE, Public Counsel, Mental Health Advocacy Services. 2009) 
6. Equal Protection Resolution (LAUSD. Nov 2007)

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