Police Banned From Enforcing Traffic Laws Over Abuse
When police departments begin viewing themselves as revenue generating entities rather than law enforcement entities, it has a deleterious effect on the public, which is now viewed as potential income, rather than citizens. If the incentives become perverted, the department will as well. Everything from "booking fees" to forfeiture laws are prone to abuse, especially when the municipality becomes just as addicted to the cash flow.
An Oklahoma town with the population of 410 is in the news precisely because of this abuse. It seems the Oklahoma Dept. of Public Safety (DPS) isn't happy with the outsized cash haul a single police department has raked in over the past few years.
The Oklahoma Department of Public Safety announced Jan. 13 that Stringtown's police department no longer would be allowed to enforce traffic laws on state and federal highways that run through the town.
According to the most recent audit of Stringtown's finances, the town generated $483,646 in fines during fiscal year 2013. That figure represents 76 percent of all Springtown revenue.
The year before, traffic fines accounted for about the same amount of cash, or 73 percent of all revenue in fiscal year 2012.
SNIP
In the early 1980s, Stringtown had just three full-time city employees. After the end of the decade -- six years after Stringtown officials decided to process their own speeding tickets -- the town employed 20 full-time workers, six of them full-time police officers.
The money from speeding tickets also built a new city hall and police station, something that's definitely a luxury for a town that would otherwise be fortunate to bankroll two full-time police officers.
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