About 92 percent of all citations issued last year by New York City police for crossing the middle of the street or against a light – colloquially known as “jaywalking” – were given to Black or Latino people, according to data analyzed by Streetsblog NYC.
NYPD officers wrote 467 summonses in 2023, with the majority citing people of marginalized communities. The figures illustrate the police department’s continued “walking while Black” ticketing tendencies, a practice that is seen among law enforcement nationwide.
“Jaywalking is not genuinely associated with traffic safety and instead is often used as a pretext to stop Black and brown individuals,” said Mike McGinn, the executive director of the nonprofit America Walks, in a statement. The organization advocates for safe and equitable walkable communities.
“We are not surprised by NYC’s recent data. Pretty much everywhere data is collected we see this unequal enforcement. And these pretextual stops can lead to real harm to those stopped.”
“Walking while Black” laws, first created in California in 1925 as a safety measure and lobbied by the automobile industry, are controversial due to racist enforcement and because they shame pedestrians while giving more protections to cars on the road.
“The concept of jaywalking encourages drivers to be aggressive toward pedestrians, and for third parties to ignore or excuse pedestrian deaths,” according to Bloomberg City Lab. “We see this reflected today in media reports of pedestrian deaths where the convention is to note the victim ‘wasn’t in the crosswalk.’”
“The focus on jaywalking reflects the lower political status of those who walk — not the societal harm of the activity.”
Research has not indicated that jaywalking laws curtail pedestrian fatalities, either. Some American cities like Kansas City and states like Virginia have removed these ordinances, saying they unfairly targeted men and Black people and there was little to gain in public safety by keeping the rules.
Advocates noted that more people are killed by cars violating their right of way than the inverse and many pedestrians are struck down on sidewalks or in storefronts. Pedestrians who are hurt or killed by automobiles tend to belong to marginalized groups like people of color, those with disabilities, older adults and those living in poverty.
Roads without adequate crosswalks, sidewalks and lighting tend to be concentrated in Black and brown neighborhoods, meaning people from marginalized communities were also likely to receive disproportionate amounts of citations, which average about $200.
According to New York City data, Latino residents received 33 percent of jaywalking citations although they made up 29 percent of the population. The rates for Black residents were more egregious, with 59 percent of all citations issued to a community that comprises only 21 percent of the city’s population.
In New York City, Black and Hispanic people comprise about 55 percent of the population. There is no evidence that these communities cross roads illegally more than others, advocates said.
The findings track with data analyzed by Streetsblog in previous years. In 2019, 90 percent of nearly 400 jaywalking citations were written to Black or Latine residents. In the first quarter of 2020, 99 percent of all tickets went to members of these communities.
The NYPD did not respond to a request for comment.
“Criminalizing jaywalking doesn’t make our streets safer. When the NYPD continuously targets Black and brown New Yorkers just for getting around the city, it puts everyone at risk,” said Elizabeth Adams, deputy executive director for public affairs at Transportation Alternatives. “We need to end our reliance on armed police for traffic enforcement, which has proven ineffective at keeping people safe, and invest in building streets that use physical infrastructure to slow drivers down and prevent crashes.”
Other states and cities across the country have made efforts to decriminalize crossing the street in undesignated areas. Nevada no longer classifies jaywalking as a misdemeanor. And New York City council members last year introduced a bill that would allow people to cross anywhere. In late 2022, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the Freedom to Walk Act into law after he originally struck down similar legislation citing high increases of pedestrian fatalities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The primary danger on our streets is vehicles moving too fast for the conditions. We design our roads to promote speed, not safety, and we design our cars to be too large,” McGinn said. “If we were serious about safety that’s what we would focus on, not going after people just trying to get around on foot in our public rights of way.”
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