Commentary: Better civil than criminal

Most city ordinance violations are now criminal offenses punishable with fines and jail sentences and violators get a criminal record if they are convicted.

Under the legislation that went into effect May 1, the Flint City Council could make most ordinance violations civil infractions. Exceptions include drug or drunk driving laws and any ordinance or statute that is punishable by imprisonment of more than 90 days.

Violators of civil infractions would be issued a notice similar to a parking ticket. They could admit guilt and pay a fine for the offense or appeal the notice to a municipal ordinance violation bureau. Only if they ignored the violation notice would they be subject to criminal prosecution.

The city council has already made violations of the noxious weed ordinance a civil infraction.

As quickly as possible, the city council should decriminalize the ordinances that deal with the day-to-day problems that adversely affect the quality of life in Flint neighborhoods, such as illegal signs, noise, dog excrement and littering.

While most people would say that these are minor problems compared with any number of other criminal acts which occur in our neighborhoods, they are the kind of problems which can become major irritants for neighborhood residents because it is rare that the government does anything about them.

Many ordinance violation cases are not prosecuted, according to City Attorney Michael Joliat, because judges and enforcement officials want code compliance but do not want to give an offender a criminal record.

Decriminalizing these type of code violations would make enforcement more likely because it would be easier and less expensive.

If a civil infractions case goes to court and the city wins, says Joliat, the prosecution costs can be shifted from the city to the offender.

According to Sen. Joe Conroy, who introduced the legislation more than six years ago, changing minor ordinance violations to civil infractions could also reduce the burden on the criminal justice system.

But the most compelling reason for decriminalizing most of the ordinances dealing with neighborhood problems is that it would be a more effective way to deal with them.

Some examples will illustrate the point.

As the weather has gotten warmer, illegal signs advertising everything from yard sales being held dozens of blocks away to church events and rap concerts have blossomed on the trees and utility poles in our neighborhoods. The person who puts a sign in the parkway (on a tree, poll, stake or even a free-standing sign) and the property owner who let them do it can be guilty of violating more than a half-dozen misdemeanors punishable with a fine and jail time. Yet we doubt that anyone has been fined or spent time in jail for the offenses since the ordinances were enacted.

It is not that the criminals cannot be found. Almost every sign has the name, address or phone number of the person responsible for putting it up. The problem is that those responsible for enforcing the ordinances are not trying to find the criminals because it is simply not worth the time and money to prosecute them.

If those ordinances were decriminalized, effective enforcement, which would drastically reduce the problem, would simply be a matter of documenting the offense, then writing a ticket and giving it to the guilty party. It would not take too many $25 tickets to eliminate the profits from an illegally advertised yard sale.

The person who takes his dog for a walk in your neighborhood is also easy to identify as a violator if he does not carry a container to collect the dog's waste.

A person who throws a loud party or assaults your ears with sounds from his personal electronic noise generator can be found and identified simply by following the sound to its source.

Something to identify the person who dumped his garbage bags in your trash container or on your parkway, such as an envelope with his name and address, can usually be found in his trash.

In short, if these types of ordinances were changed from criminal violations, which require proof "beyond a reasonable doubt," to civil infractions, which require only the "preponderance of evidence," they would become more enforceable.

More importantly, by making them more enforceable, they are more likely to be enforced. Therefore, they would become an effective deterrent which would prevent most people from violating them.

GPC