City Council Deadlocks on Truant Penalties : Rights: Proposal would impose stiffer punishments, but some officials fear minorities would be targeted.

Amid a lengthy debate on how to eliminate a root cause of crime without stepping on individual rights, the Los Angeles City Council deadlocked Wednesday over a proposal to stiffen penalties for truant students.

The debate became so intense that after more than an hour, council members couldn’t even agree on whether to wait one week or two weeks before reconsidering the proposed law. In the end, the council agreed, on a split vote, to take the issue up again in two weeks.

Under the proposal offered by Councilwoman Laura Chick, police officers would issue a truant student a citation, forcing him or her to appear with a parent or legal guardian before a juvenile traffic court judge who can impose a fine or community service work.

The law would apply to students under 18 who are caught loitering on school days from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Citations would appear as infractions on a student’s driving record and, if ignored, would lead to a suspended license.

The fine and the amount of community service work are decided by the traffic court judge.

“If we can do this and keep our kids in school, we will be taking a very important step,” Chick told her colleagues, who, coincidentally, were hosting student leaders from various high schools.

Despite support from the Los Angeles Police Department and the head of the Los Angeles Unified School District, several council members objected to the proposal, saying the law provides no exemptions for students who are on work-study programs or other special schedules that allow them to be out of class.

The harshest criticism came from school board members-turned-council members Jackie Goldberg and Rita Walters, who worried that law-abiding students would be punished under the proposal. They are also concerned that minority students would be unfairly targeted.

Goldberg said she would support the law only if it is adopted on a one-year trial basis and if the fines are set at a maximum of $50. She also asked that police be required to keep track of the race and gender of the students who are cited.

“It’s not quite ready to go,” Goldberg said of the proposal.

Walters said she feared the law would begin an erosion of students’ civil liberties that could eventually lead to an atmosphere in which youngsters will be stopped and questioned based on skin color.

“I just wonder if we are getting to a place where it is a crime to be a teen-ager,” Walters said. “This kind of erosion of civil liberties starts with little things.”

Students found to be truant are now punished in various ways. Parents can be notified and the youths can be sent to a detention center, suspended or even expelled from school.

But Chick and school board President Mark Slavkin said the proposed law would force youngsters to be more responsible for their actions because the penalties would directly impact their driving privileges. They added that if the truancy rate is reduced, crime committed by youths will also be lessened.

“Frankly, I wish I had thought of it,” Slavkin said of the proposal. “Because of this, many parents for the first time will learn that their kids are not in school.”

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LAPD Cmdr. Mike Bostic, who oversees juvenile issues for the department, said he backs the law because it would provide police a valuable tool for dealing with idle teen-agers. He added that it would also save time for police who under the current law have to drive truant students back to class.

“Actually, it’s not a burden,” he told the council. “It’s a very necessary tool.”

As for concerns that police would cite students who have legitimate reasons to be out of school, Bostic said each police division has police patrolling in “school cars” who are familiar with school schedules in their area and know when students are allowed to be out of class.

“Will we make mistakes? Yes,” he conceded.

One of the student leaders attending Wednesday’s council meeting said the council should have adopted the proposal despite its potential flaws.

“I think it would be a good idea,” said Brad Jacoby, a sophomore at Taft High School in Woodland Hills. He said there is now a feeling among students that there are no consequences for ditching class.

After the council deadlocked on the proposal, Chick said: “I am confident that my colleagues that had concerns will have those concerns addressed in the next two weeks and that we will have enough votes to go forward on this.”

The proposal was modeled after a law adopted last year in Monrovia, where police think tough truancy penalties have played a role in reducing the truancy rate slightly in that city.

In Monrovia, the traffic court judge has typically issued fines of $135, but in most cases the truant students have opted to work off the fine through 27 hours of community service each, doing everything from removing graffiti to filing books in the public library.