Photo by Harold Neal.Anyone in D.C. may be subject to a $75 fine for littering, as enforcement of the law expanded citywide yesterday.
Ticketing began in May 2011 in the Fourth District as part of an anti-littering pilot program and expanded to the Sixth District in 2012. Only six tickets were paid in 2012 of the 75 given out, while 23 were dismissed and 41 defaulted. According to a recent Metropolitan Police Department report, 2013 wasn’t much better: 76 tickets were issued, but 49 defaulted and 14 were rejected, again, because “a particular field on the ticket was left blank.”
In that report, police warn that civil violations tend to bring about a low compliance rate.
“Over the course of the entire pilot, 4 out of 5 violators have simply ignored the NOVs issued to them. When the proposed legislation was discussed in Council, MPD cautioned that there was likely to be a low compliance rate with civil violations for which an individual has no property interest or privilege to protect—such as real property, a professional license, or a driver’s license. In order for littering enforcement to be effective, the government must be able to hold violators accountable for their actions,” the report states.
“Without repercussions for an offense, the government’s ability to hold violators accountable for this civil offense is limited, and the tickets may not be enough of an incentive to motivate people to change their behavior. This is important to recognize because the Council used the same enforcement scheme as the model for the Marijuana Possession Decriminalization Amendment Act of 2014, which establishes the same type of civil violation with a $25 fine for possession of an ounce or less of marijuana.”
