The Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area recently published a groundbreaking report—Cited for Being in Plain Sight​—examining racial disparities in enforcement of alleged infractions against Black, Latinx, and unhoused Californians simply for sitting, sleeping, and standing in public. The report reveals that the disparate charging of such infractions does nothing to help the people affected by them, but rather burdens them with typically uncollectible debt that only serves to push them deeper into the shadows of society.

For example, the report includes the story of Clifton in Sacramento. Clifton was living on the streets and received multiple infractions, including bus fare violations. The only way for Clifton to resolve these violations was to take the bus to go to court. Without having the means to pay for the bus fare, attempting to resolve the infractions put him at direct risk of receiving more.

Wilson Sonsini assisted with the research underlying the report, and the report includes an acknowledgement of thanks to attorneys Luke Liss, Chidera Anyanwu, Amy Ilowite, and Jon Loebl and senior paralegals​ Naomi Pierce and Shea Henneman.

Read the full report here.​