In Name Of ‘Public Safety,’ Charlotte May Be Trampling On Constitution

The Charlotte skyline
The Charlotte skyline (image by RickyW, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license)


The city council in my hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina is mulling a crime-prevention idea that could potentially do far more harm than good. A proposed ordinance would allow the police to set up public safety zones from which people could be banned from entering if they merely have been arrested for a crime in that particular area. Not only is this a bad idea, it may also be unconstitutional.

In response to a spike in violent crime, Charlotte city councilman Al Austin, whose northwest Charlotte district includes some of the city’s rougher neighborhoods, has proposed giving the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police the power to designate certain high-crime areas as public safety zones. The declaration could be triggered by any crime that takes place on public property, such as prostitution, discharging a weapon, or drug dealing. Anyone who has been arrested for a crime in that area would be put on notice that they could face misdemeanor charges if they enter the area for the duration of the public safety zone declaration. Such a ban can be appealed if, for instance, you need to enter the area to go to work or pick up a child from school.

Austin, a Democrat, told The Charlotte Observer that he wants to give the police additional tools to deal with a spike in violent crime during the past year. He first bandied the idea of public safety zones to former police chief Rodney Monroe earlier this year. However, city councilwoman Claire Fallon, who helms the council’s public safety committee, is somewhat skeptical of the idea. She isn’t sure that a public safety zone declaration would make much of an impression on someone who doesn’t obey the law, and is also concerned that such a declaration could take crime “off the plate of one community” and put it on another.

There’s also another reason this is a rotten idea–on the face of it, it’s blatantly unconstitutional. It is more than reasonable to ban someone who has past convictions, especially felony convictions, from entering a particular area. Telling someone who merely has an arrest that they can’t go somewhere, though, is another matter altogether. If the police were to make such a call on their own authority without seeking a court order, it would be a pretty egregious violation of the First and 14th Amendments to the federal Constitution, as well as the state constitution’s equal protection clause.

The police department seems to have acknowledged the constitutional problem. In a presentation to the city council on September, it said that the public safety zone program has the potential to be “an overhanded arbitrary government action.” At the same time, though, the department claimed the zones could help “disrupt nuisance criminal activity.” Maybe it’s just me, but any reduction in criminal activity wouldn’t be worth the arbitrary nature of declaring an area a public safety zone.

Two things surprise me about this. The first is that a Democratic city councilman–one who isn’t a Blue Dog or Dixiecrat–in a city that has turned an unrecognizable shade of blue even thinks this is a good idea. The other is that the city council and police department haven’t already been put on notice that this is a lawsuit waiting to happen.

The proposal still has to go before the public safety committee before coming before the full council. But, as egregious as this is, it’s time to stop this monstrosity in its tracks. Click here to get contact information for the members of the city council. You know what to do, Liberal America readers. Let’s let Charlotte’s city fathers and mothers know that this is not the way to get a handle on crime.

Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook. Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello.