DC: Lack Of Littering Consciousness

I have made littering complaints to the MPD only to be told that there is nothing they can do about it - makes no sense that littering laws are designed to be impossible to enforce. This will be somewhat of an improvement but I tend question how much - don't expect the trash on the streets to go away anytime soon.



Police step up littering enforcement

By ELIZABETH WIENER
Current Staff Writer
May 4, 2011

A pilot program to help police enforce the city’s antilitter laws took off cautiously in parts of wards 4 and 5 this week. If it works, officials say, the rest of the city will find police ticketing and fining litterbugs later this year.

The pilot, based on a 2008 law, authorizes the Metropolitan Police Department to require litterers to give proper identification so they can be issued a ticket carrying a $75 fine. Police can issue the tickets to those who toss cans, bottles, cigarette butts and other trash into public space and waterways. Previous law allowed drivers to be ticketed for littering, but the new law applies to passengers as well.

Police officers will have to witness the violation in order to write a ticket.

For the first month, police will issue only warnings; the actual fines will kick in on June 1. Offenders who do not give their correct name and address could be fined an additional $100 to $250 by the D.C. Superior Court.

At a press briefing last week, Mayor Vincent Gray noted that past city litter laws have lacked teeth because police couldn’t force offenders to identify themselves unless they were actually arrested. But, he said, littering is a serious enough problem that “we have to bring the force of law to bear. This program helps us to do that.”

A2008 report states that the District government was spending about $20 million a year picking up litter, and that littering and other quality-of-life offenses are often linked to neighborhoods in decline and more violent crime.

Police spokesperson Gwendolyn Crump said the Metropolitan Police Department’s 4th District, which covers most of Ward 4 and parts of Ward 5, was chosen for the pilot because littering is an “oft-mentioned concern” in the community. She said police need to test out new ticketing forms and a new adjudication process by the Office of Administrative Hearings for several months to see if future changes will be needed.

“We hope to implement training and launch citywide enforcement around mid to late fall, at the earliest,” Crump wrote in an email.

Meanwhile, the existing law, which allows police to cite motorists for littering, will continue to be enforced citywide. Police have always had the authority to stop cars and demand a driver’s license, and there’s already a $100 fine for drivers who litter from a vehicle.

Fourth District Cmdr. Kimberly Chisley-Missouri notified residents about the new anti-littering effort last week, winning a string of compliments and suggestions on neighborhood listservs.

“Excellent news,” wrote one resident. “I encourage 4D to be on the lookout for littering at and around the Autozone” on Georgia Avenue.

“Please give attention to the 7-Eleven Store” on 3rd Street, someone else wrote.

Others lamented the time they have spent clearing away coffee cups, carryout trays and other trash from bus shelters, and they noted the “folks who tend to clean their cars out at/near a stop sign” on Blagden Avenue. They said the police should focus their efforts on such litterers.

Litter laws are widely applauded but have been hard to enforce. In 2008, a D.C. Council committee report noted that although police already had authority to issue tickets, they first had to “ascertain the identity of the person to whom the ticket is being issued,” and that offenders were simply refusing to give their names.

Then police officials suggested they be allowed to ticket litterers the same way they ticket jaywalkers, under a law that requires offenders to provide their true name and address under penalty of a fine. Neither law requires any offender to carry official IDs.

A bill passed by the council late that year explicitly requires individuals stopped for violating litter laws to provide police with their name and address. It also gives police authority to stop a car and cite a littering passenger. The law took effect in March 2009.

But nothing in the D.C. bureaucracy is simple. Crump explained that enforcement took another two years because amendments were needed to clarify that laws protecting the confidentiality of juvenile offenders did not apply to civil violations like littering. Otherwise, the Office of Administrative Hearings, which handles adjudication, would have had to establish “extensive confidentiality procedures” for juveniles caught in the act of dropping trash, she wrote.

Crump said the new anti-litter program will not distract police from other higher-priority public safety efforts. “MPD is not going to become the ‘littering police,’” she wrote. The Department of Public Works and the Mayor’s Office of the Clean City will continue to take the lead. But “police officers, with their round-the-clock presence, can be an important part of the routine enforcement.”







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