Jaywalking Legalized in Virginia

Wyatt Gordon reports from Virginia, where a bill to decriminalize jaywalking was approved by the General Assembly earlier this year.

"Though it didn’t garner as much attention as other police reform measures during the special legislative session that ended this fall, a provision to decriminalize jaywalking in a pretextual policing bill from Delegate Patrick Hope, D-Arlington, means that come March 1, police will no longer be able to stop folks for the act of crossing the street outside of a marked crosswalk," writes Gordon.

"Criminal justice reformers called it a small step along the path to reducing encounters with the police, especially for people of color," adds Gordon, to assess the significance of the change in the law.

Gordon provides a lot more detail on what is means to decriminalizing jaywalking, and by extension the unofficial by highly damaging crime of "walking while black."

A 2019 audit of the New York Police Department revealed that officers issued 90 percent of “illegal or unsafe crossing” tickets to Blacks and Hispanics although those two groups make up just 55 percent of the Big Apple’s population.  A ProPublica investigation in Jacksonville, Florida similarly found Black residents received 78 percent of all tickets for “walking in the roadway where sidewalks are provided” despite comprising just 29 percent of the city’s population.

Gordon also includes analysis of concerns that by legalizing jaywalking, the state might encourage risky or dangerous behaviors by pedestrians.