Many face mask mandates go unenforced by police
WASHINGTON–In Florida, t he Miami- Dade Police Department has cited hundreds of businesses and individuals for not following face mask rules, with the county collecting nearly $300,000 in fines.
Many other cities have taken a more lax approach.
In Austin, Texas, fines can be as high as $2,000 per day for individuals, although the police department rarely levies them. Educating the public, not punishing them, is the focus, the agency said.
As the COVID-19 death toll nears 200,000, face mask mandates have spread across the country, with more than 30 governors issuing statewide orders and city or county ordinances filling in where governors haven't in some states, such as Florida, Arizona and Tennessee.
But how these rules are enforced varies.
At a time of intense scrutiny on law enforcement amid nationwide protests against police brutality and calls to defund the police, many department leaders believe that punishing people for not wearing masks – which have come to symbolize the pandemic's political divide – would only put officers at the center of yet another fraught controversy.
“With all the national issues right now with law enforcement ... do we really need police officers handing out tickets for people not wearing a face mask? ... Do we really want police officers en forcing health issues?” said Steve Casstevens, president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police and chief of the Buffalo Grove Police Department in Illinois.
Jason Johnson, president
of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, agreed, citing an incident in Philadelphia in April in which police officers were captured on video draggin ga man off a bus after he refused to wear a face mask. The incident became a national story and placed law enforcement in yet another unflattering spotlight.
“The last thing any law enforcement leader wants is to have an officer involved in a confrontation that started with someone not wearing am ask ,” said Johnson, former deputy commissioner for the Baltimore Police Department.
Lindsay Wiley, who teaches public health law at American University, said it's “improper” to rely on police to enforce public health requirements.
“It could be counter productive and could create a situation where there's an escalation of the conflict,” she said. “When public health officials rely on policing, I think that's problematic.”
Politics at play?
Often, the prevailing politics in a jurisdiction dictates how aggressively face mask requirements are enforced and followed – or whether
they' re enforced at all, Johnson said.
“I do see it as problematic,” Johnson said about the politicization of face masks. “The politics and the jurisdiction drives the culture and the approach that law enforcement takes.”
A Pew Research Center survey in June showed clear partisan divisions, with more Democrats than Republicans embracing face mask requirements.
The survey found that 76% of Democrats or those who lean Democratic wear masks all or most of the time, compared to 53% of Republicans. Conservative Republicans are among the least likely to say they have worn am ask, with 49% saying they have done so. That number is 60% among moderate Republicans.
For many l aw enforcement agencies, enforcing face mask rules risks tangling with potentially controversial civil liberty issues.
In Texas, where the governor issued a statewide mask order, the police department in the Dallas suburb of Grand Prairie has not cited anyone at all. The department is largely supported by its citizens and has escaped the civil unrest riling the country, Police Chief Daniel Scesney said.