Posted on 08/20/2014 2:48:12 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Jeff Smith, a New School professor and former Missouri state senator, had a sensational op-ed in this weekend’s New York Times that dived into the economic forces that have helped shape the strife in Ferguson. His big point is that the local police have a strong financial incentive to arrest, ticket, and otherwise harass the city’s black residents for minor offenses, because that’s how the department funds its budget.
How so? From Smith:
St. Louis County contains 90 municipalities, most with their own city hall and police force. Many rely on revenue generated from traffic tickets and related fines. According to a study by the St. Louis nonprofit Better Together, Ferguson receives nearly one-quarter of its revenue from court fees; for some surrounding towns it approaches 50 percent.
Municipal reliance on revenue generated from traffic stops adds pressure to make more of them. One town, Sycamore Hills, has stationed a radar-gun-wielding police officer on its 250-foot northbound stretch of Interstate.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
The cops on the Second City Cop blog complain about this exact thing and did long before the ferguson mess. The cops don’t want to police this way, as revenue collectors.
Slate anD NY Times think they are top of the curve because they learned about speed traps?
This Ferguson™ stuff is getting pretty stretched thin.
If you don’t want a riot squad in your neighborhood, don’t riot. It’s incredibly simple to protest but NOT riot, loot and burn.
“The cops don’t want to police this way, as revenue collectors.”
That’s a very interesting and important comment.
The cops are some of the most vocal against the new speed trap cameras.
Although Ive never seen the left (like Occupy) manage to do it any other way. Occupy even added rapes to their “arsenal”, or at least refused to repudiate them.
What the SSC cops mean is that, with all the violent crime in Chicago, their time is being wasted in this way.
Yeah, but it’s not a racially discriminatory system. ALL citizens are subject to it. Heck, the non-’black’ citizens are more likely to be targeted since they are more likely to have more ready money LOL!
I think it’s good to collect law enforcement costs from law breakers than the law abiding, though it can go too far.
A friend’s young relative got in trouble with the law and was very perplexed at my statement: “Well, at least you’re keeping my property taxes down!”
For profit policing has been around for over a century and this “Brainiac” professor has figured out why people are upset in Ferguson with Coppers? What an epiphany! This member of the of the enlighten class of thinkers really needs to have a heart to heart talk with Captain Obvious.
“Stuck on Stupid”
Even state police agencies have been accused of Ticket Quotas.
Early in the month, they tend to make more stops and issue more tickets to get jump on their quotas.
If they are running short near the end of the month, they increase the stops and ticket issuing.
Of course, they deny it.
Within a few years the riot squads will only be allowed to be used against gun owners, tax payers, Christians, etc.
It's at least as bad for whites, who in addition to speed traps, have to worry about higher-ticket assessments, like civil asset forfeiture.
I have no sympathy whatsoever for the looters and rioters.
Of course, they deny it.
**************
They don’t deny it ,, they however use the euphamism “Goals and Objectives”.
It was descibed to me that there is no set number but if a cop issues less tickets than everyone else he gets his butt chewed. This way it keeps the ticket revenues up with plausible deniablilty of an official policy.
At 2/3rds of the population, blacks are always going to be proportionally stopped more often than whites. The only way to avoid this is to have no police force at all.
“The cops are some of the most vocal against the new speed trap cameras.”
More revenue, less cops, higher profit.
No argument there. I was just saying that police thirst for revenue is not limited by race.
How about highlighting the dangers of feral humans?
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