Click It or Ticket Insanity

[RedEsprit]

I support most law-enforcement activities. I live in a nice house filled with lots of stuff, and the various police forces serve as an instrument that helps maintain this happy status quo. And the police are routinely occupied with much less pleasant tasks than nabbing the occasional burglar. Law enforcement often intersects with tragic and dangerous circumstances, and I have nothing but respect and appreciation for those who perform it.

Then I hear a story such as the one coming out of Redford Township, a suburb on Detroit’s northwest side. In a transparently obvious scheme to raise cash, the township has instituted a policy in which Redford police officers will receive an hour of overtime pay for every two tickets they write. For example, if an officer is working overtime and writes eight tickets in two hours, he or she gets paid for four hours of overtime at $41 per hour. Apparently, Redford Township never got the secret nationwide memo urging all governmental agencies to categorically deny any policy even hinting at ticket quotas.

Given such financial encouragement, what incentive is there for Redford police to enforce any laws other than traffic offenses? Furthermore, they are now motivated to write the easiest, most expedient tickets to maximize their personal incomes.

You can imagine this conversation in a Redford patrol car. “Say, Joe, that blue sedan has crossed the center line and nearly sideswiped a car in the last quarter-mile. He’s gotta be drunk. Let’s check it out.”

“Are you nuts!” says his partner. “The sobriety test will take forever, and if we have to haul him in for a blood test, the rest of our shift is shot. Let’s go set up a radar trap near that reduced-speed zone that starts three miles before the road construction, and we’ll write six tickets in the next hour.”

This notion of making profit centers out of law-enforcement activities is making its way across the nation. Here in Ann Arbor, we’ve watched the city council discuss the hiring of new officers based on adding revenue to the city’s coffers rather than on any increases in crime or accident rates. The only factor considered was whether the net ticket profits generated by the extra cops would exceed their cost in salary, benefits, and overhead.

Revenue enhncement...plain and simple. Its indefensible in today's economic climate.