All Californians will benefit from the Governor's decision to sign AB 2147—the Freedom to Walk Act—into law." said Zal Shroff, Senior Staff Attorney at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area. "No longer will law enforcement be able to stop people who are safely crossing the street and burden them with citations and heaps of debt. For too long, our jaywalking laws were used as a pretext to stop and harass people, especially low-income people and people of color. The reforms enacted in AB 2147 will put an end to that and, in doing so, make all of California safer for pedestrians.

California historically has had numerous cases where jaywalking arrests have gone wrong. With citizens being injured or even killed following police accusations of jaywalking. In addition, data complied by the California Racial and Identity Profiling Act from 2018-2020, shows that Black Californians are severely overrepresented when it comes to being stopped for jaywalking, up to four-and-a-half times more than their White counterparts.