LA To Cut Some Slack To Small-Time Offenders

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Driving without a license or using a fake ID to buy alcohol will no longer result in criminal charges in Los Angeles.

LAPD commanding officers have received a memo detailing 91 violations that'll be considered infractions instead of misdemeanors.

That means the violations won't appear in U.S. Department of Justice criminal records, and they no longer figure into department crime statistics tracking misdemeanors and felonies.

The memo dated July 25 was sent out in response to guidelines the city attorney's office revised in May.

A spokesman for the city attorney's office says the change is an effort to make the system more efficient and save taxpayer dollars. He says such offenses were usually downgraded to infractions upon review anyway.