Police As Revenue Generators For Cities, Any Alternatives? (salaries, generations, Mexican)
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I just read To Collect and Serve, an article in a recent Mother Jones magazine, regarding the police being revenue generators for cash-strapped cities.
This year in Ferguson, MO, nearly a quarter of their $13 million budget is projected to come from traffic fines.
And now that Missouri has put a cap on the amount of revenue that cities can generate from traffic fines, they're now turning to non-traffic fines.
In Pagedale, a suburb of St. Louis: "you can't have a hedge more than 3 feet high, you can't have a basketball hoop or a wading pool in front of your house, you can't have a dish antenna on the front of your house, you can't walk on the roadway if there's a sidewalk, they must walk on the left side of the roadway. You can't have a barbecue in the front yard and can't have an alcoholic beverage within 150 feet of a barbecue. Kids can't play in the street, also restrictions on pants being worn below the waist. Cars must be within 500 feet of a lamp or a source of illumination during nighttime house. Blinds must be neatly hung in a respectable appearance."
As a result, Pagedale saw a 495% increase in nontraffic-related arrests, in Frontenac, an increase of 364% and in Lakeshire, a 209% increase.
Before it's too late, we need to come up with alternatives, before it gets any worse. And what alternatives may they be, to keep these cities afloat?
Ditch the car and turn to bicycles? Don't think so! My Mexican roommate, a few months ago, believe it or not, was ticketed on his bicycle for stopping at an intersection, and his front tire was a little over the white line!
All these little towns in St.Louis are like that, and there's so damn many of them. There's this one town where the city hall,which looks like a dumpy house is right across the street from another town's city hall.
There was this cop who quit the department and blew the whistle to the news about how the chief threatened all the officers with termination if they didn't write a given amount of tickets.
Municipalities are on the list of "businesses" likely to suffer mightily if we ever get automated cars (they won't violate traffic laws and they will record data that proves they haven't). They need to change the revenue model sooner rather than later and if (when?) automated cars are in place there will be a need for far fewer police.
We have entirely too many laws. Generations of lawmakers feeling as though they have to prove their worth are responsible for this problem. But it's not an insurmountable problem.
I used to know a guy who got eight - count 'em - DWIs. He was mad as heck. He said the police knew where he drank and just lay in wait for him to come out at night and drive drunk.
Not fair! Guess he couldn't figure out the solution to his problem.
Really, the only people who have to complain about this are the lawbreakers. The way I avoid being a cash cow for the city or state is not to do anything that might get me a fine. The solution is so simple a child could figure it out.
I was kinda slow. Took me two traffic tickets forty years ago before I got it.
I think it would be appropriate to have a law requiring to distribute all the "penalty" money among residents who aren't found guilty of any penalty-bearing law during the fiscal year... That would most certainly eliminate all incentives to collect those fines.
Unless the charges are bogus, I don't see the problem. Shouldn't they give fines for traffic violations? Non-traffic violations? If you reduce the force, who shows when someone is breaking into your house while you are sitting there holding the phone?
The traffic and other more minor offenses help pay the salaries so they'll be around when you need them for more serious offenses.
It just looks to me like people don't take traffic laws seriously by the stats quoted here.
Here's a radical idea for Ferguson --and all the other towns like it. Raise taxes to collect revenue!
That's what taxes are for--to support municipal function. Fines for violations are to enforce reasonable rules, not to be a primary source of municipal revenue. Confuse the two and you get the ugly situations you had in Ferguson and elsewhere.
Now higher property or sales taxes wouldn't be popular for sure. But they are more predictable, more efficient, easier to collect, subject to public review, and not arbitrary in how they're levied (that is, they don't depend on how a particular cop or judge feels when he wakes up that morning.)
But "tax" is just such a nasty word these days, that lots of people won't even consider it, even when it's the obvious and simple answer to the problem.
It is simple we have a police force to enforce the laws no matter how stupid they may be.
Break the law you may get a ticket and might be hauled before a judge.
When I drove a truck for a living one of our drivers was pulled over by a state trooper because his back tires were riding the white line. Yes it is a violation to go over or on the white or yellow lines without signaling but getting pulled over for being on it??
I don't remember if he got a ticket but I'm sure the trooper was ready to give him one if he had other violations like not wearing a seat belt etc...
I think it is a good sign when the Police start going after traffic violations because it usually means they don't have bigger problems like drugs to crack down on. It is either that or they are afraid of being sued or starting a racial incident so they take the easy route...
It is simple we have a police force to enforce the laws no matter how stupid they may be.
Break the law you may get a ticket and might be hauled before a judge.
When I drove a truck for a living one of our drivers was pulled over by a state trooper because his back tires were riding the white line. Yes it is a violation to go over or on the white or yellow lines without signaling but getting pulled over for being on it??
I don't remember if he got a ticket but I'm sure the trooper was ready to give him one if he had other violations like not wearing a seat belt etc...
I think it is a good sign when the Police start going after traffic violations because it usually means they don't have bigger problems like drugs to crack down on. It is either that or they are afraid of being sued or starting a racial incident so they take the easy route...
It's not a good sign here because they do have bigger problems constantly, rapists,arsonists,murderers,bank robbers but they can't get money off them like they can the people who have grass over 5 inches high (my sister said she actually saw a guy stop in front of her neighbor's house with a ruler and measure and the next day there was a citation on the door) or a front porch railing not high enough, having your car towed from your driveway and paying a $175.00 fine and then having to pay $500.00 to the tow yard to get it back. There was a guy in my old neighborhood who had a sidewalk that ran from the curb up to the side of his house and he had weeds growing thru the cracks, he decided to fill in the cracks with cement patch and ended up getting a ticket because he didn't get a permit. So it doesn't matter if you are in your car or in your house, you are going to get squeezed one way or another.
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