Police officers use investigatory pedestrian stops to attempt to investigate criminal activity. They can stop people when they believe (or have reasonable suspicion) that a person is involved in a past, present, or future crime. Officers can then question the person or even pat them down if they reasonably suspect the person is dangerous and has a weapon.

• Even without reasonable suspicion, an officer can stop a person from committing a low-level traffic violation, like “jaywalking.” “Jaywalking” refers to offenses that limit the location and ways that pedestrians can walk in or cross the street. 

• These discretionary stops are problematic because they enable police to use jaywalking to unreasonably target Black and Latine pedestrians who have simply engaged in activities that pedestrians of all races engage in daily across Chicago.

• Communities across the country are moving to eliminate jaywalking enforcement, recognizing that the harm of enforcement often disproportionately falls on communities of color and that these stops do not address the safety concerns faced by pedestrians, which could be better solved by designing streets to be safer and more convenient for pedestrians.