Police Discretion and the Quality of Life in Public Places: Courts, Communities, and the New Policing

hailing "quality of life enforcement" as an essential part of both crime control and fear reduction in American communities-have either passed or started enforcing ordinances prohibiting things like aggressive panhandling, unlicensed street vending, graffiti scrawling, public drinking and urinating, and loitering in the vicinity of automated teller machines.1 4 Some of these new laws and enforcement measures have attracted attention from legal commentators.The widespread revival of juvenile curfews, for instance, has prompted reexamination of the legal standards governing judicial review of curfews and reassessment of the practical efficacy of curfews in reducing juvenile violence and protecting young people from crime on the streets. 15 Police enforcement of laws restrict-1991 enactment of drug loitering ordinance by Alexandria, Virginia City Council); Mike Todd, Council Passes New Law Against Loitering, Austin American-Statesman, Feb. 4, 1994, at B3, available in 1994 WL 3945343 (reporting 1994 passage of anti-drug and antiprostitution loitering ordinances in Austin, Texas).14. See, e.g., Clifford Krauss, Efforts on Quality of Life in Village a Success, the Police Say, N.Y.Times, June 24, 1994, at BI (noting increased summonses in Greenwich Village for minor offenses like graffiti vandalism and unlicensed vending); Steve Miletich, Sidewalk Law is Posted, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 19, 1994, at Al (discussing enforcement of Seattle anti-camping and public urination ordinances); Michael Ybarra, Don't Ask, Don't Beg, Don't Sit, N.Y.Times, May 19, 1996, § 4, at 5 (noting that cities "from Alexandria, Va. and Akron, Ohio to Berkeley, Calif.have put limits on where and how people are allowed to beg").See generally City of New York Police Dep't, Police Strategy No. 5: Reclaiming the Public Spaces of New York (1994) (outlining New York City Police Department strategy for ameliorating disorderly conditions); National Law Ctr. on Homelessness and Poverty, No Homeless People Allowed (1994) (discussing antipanhandling and related measures in cities across country) [hereinafter No Homeless People Allowed]; Robert C. Ellickson, Controlling Chronic Misconduct in City Spaces: Of