Truancy Law Will Take Effect in Fall : Police: Enforcement of the ordinance is delayed, giving officers time to work out details, educate parents and students.

A new law allowing police to cite truant students will not be enforced until Oct. 1, giving officers time to mount an education campaign and to work out details of enforcement.

Police officials told members of a city panel Monday that it would be better to begin enforcing the anti-truancy ordinance in the fall, when all city schools are in session, rather than summer, when only year-round campuses are open.

The delay, agreed to by the Police Department and the Los Angeles Unified School District, will permit police to inform parents and children of the new law and to adopt uniform enforcement procedures across the city.

The City Council passed the ordinance in May, aiming to curb juvenile crime by stiffening the penalties for students caught skipping class. The law authorizes police to issue citations to truant youths, who must appear with a parent or guardian before a traffic court judge. Infractions could result in fines, community service work or even revocation of driving privileges for repeat offenders.

Opponents of the toughened policy fear that minority students in poorer areas and youths with valid reasons for being out of school will be unfairly targeted by police.

To answer those concerns, city officials sought assurance Monday from police that officers would not enforce the law in a discriminatory way or employ “new techniques” for corralling youngsters that would infringe on their civil liberties, said Marvin Braude, chairman of the council’s public safety committee.

Police officials are scheduled to report back to the City Council on Friday. But by waiting until fall before enforcing the new measure, the LAPD already effectively sidesteps concern over possible unequal treatment of minority youths.

Because most students on year-round campuses are minorities, starting now could mean an immediate higher-than-usual incidence of citations for minority students. An Oct. 1 start date would prevent that.

Summer was also inadvisable for enforcement because many of the year-round campuses in the school district lie outside city boundaries and the jurisdiction of Los Angeles police, said Capt. Stewart Maislin, who works in the department’s juvenile division.

“We are in complete agreement with the LAPD and the school district’s decision to postpone enforcement until October,” said Eric Rose, an aide to Councilwoman Laura Chick, who sponsored the toughened policy.

The fall start date was determined by a joint police and school-district task force that is also charged with reviewing citation records monthly to see how the law is being applied, including its ethnic impact.

Maislin said the lag time until Oct. 1 will allow him and his officers to educate parents and students, who under previous regulations did not have to worry about truancy propelling them into court.

The new law authorizes police to cite any youth under 18 found loitering between 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on school days. A traffic court judge could then levy a fine of up to $50 or sentence the student to community service. The penalties would be waived if the student stayed in school over the next 60 days.

In the past, students caught skipping class were simply returned to their campuses, where they faced punishments ranging from parental conferences to expulsion.

Last year, the Los Angeles school system had a 4% rate of absences not recognized as legitimate by the state. Those absences include truancies.