Originally published at www.ypsl.org along with many other great articles.
Speeding is breaking the law. Yet most everyone does it and quite frequently at that. I would wager that myself, I speed on any given day. Perhaps every time I go driving. Yet I consider myself a very safe driver. I have never had an accident. I feel very confident in my abilities to handle my car. If I go 67 mph on the highway, I am posing no greater threat to anyone that if I were going 65. In fact, if I began going 25 mph, I would become a hazard, yet remain within my legal limits. Somehow, going just over whatever the chosen speed limit is becomes enough of a threat to society that it must be made an illegal, punishable offense.
The point is speeding is a meaningless, irrelevant crime that exists only within arbitrary boundaries. But the cost of being ticketed is very real. For many straight and narrow citizens, a speeding ticket is the only contact they will have with the police. It makes one resent and eventually hate the police. And all over such a nothing of a crime. So why the disconnect between the crime and the punishment?
The average speeding ticket is about $150 and you can expect to pay a few hundred more in higher insurance rates over the next year or so. The actual fine for speeding is often very low, perhaps only $20. Much of the rest of the money is tied up in "court costs," "legal fees," and various political funds. Often these funds go to padding the town's budget and quite often going directly back to the police force itself.
This is where the issue becomes troubling to me. The police are getting directly rewarded for handing out citations on meaningless crimes. Now, I am fine with police forces being rewarded for doing good, honest work - let's say, catching a murderer or rapist. But those rewards come through a third party process such as a levy or through the town's budget. The money from speeding tickets simply rewards the police for doing menial, pointless tasks. No one if protected or served when a speeding ticket is given.
The point is driven maddeningly home in the case of speed traps. Everyone knows about these, and most towns have at least some mild form of one. But in these traps we see the police are exploiting a convenient loophole in the system. They get paid for essentially NOT doing their jobs. Worse yet, they are preying upon the very people they are supposed to be serving.
Perhaps the worst case of a speed trap was found in New Rome, Ohio. This village made up about three blocks and had a population of 60. The police force numbered 14. Yet they brought in $400,000 annually from speeding tickets. This incredible cash flow subsidized their little hamlet, completely funding the police department. It also led to massive corruption, with hundreds of thousands of dollars going missing. Greed begets greed, and eventually trumps ethics.
The better funded a police force is, the better armed they are going to be. The current trend is towards the so-called "non-lethal" taser guns. These fire electrodes that deliver an incapacitating electric charge of 50,000 volts to the person fired upon. A car battery uses about 12 volts. The electrodes originally had to penetrate the skin to work but thick clothing made that a constant problem. Newer tasers are more advanced, no longer having to penetrate, and can drop someone wearing even body armor.
But tasers are not as safe as Taser, Inc would like us to believe. The term "non-lethal" can have many meanings, one of those being "quite lethal." Between 1999 and 2005, at least 148 people have been killed as a result of being Tasered. Most of those deaths took place within the last year, and the number is rising.
Even Taser, Inc recognizes the problem. From their own website, under the heading Deployment Health Risks, they list "Sudden In-Custody Death Syndrome Awareness." To combat Death Syndrome, they recommend applying "immediate physical restraint techniques." They go on to claim that Death Syndrome is a "complex set of physiological and psychological conditions" such as changes in blood chemistry. They do not mention the application of 50,000 volts to the person as a factor in Death Syndrome.
Tasers don't come cheap, costing about $500 bucks a piece. Police budgets are often thin, but their eyes are wide, especially when there are new toys to be had. Currently about 1700 police departments use tasers, and no one wants to be the last on the block with the latest gimmick. But the money must come from somewhere, and if the taxpayers aren't keen on raising another levy, then the police can up the number of speeding tickets, directly increasing the money flowing to their coffers.
This institutionalization of greed leaves the public at a double loss - we are ticketed and forced to pay fines and in turn must face a heavier armed, more deadly police force. This is a viscous circle of police brutality at its worst.
But let me suggest a radical idea. First, streamline the ticketing process to cut down on the court costs and those sorts of fees. Then take the money gained from speeding tickets and put it all into local homeless shelters and soup kitchens. That is, actually give the citizens a benefit that they can see and touch, a benefit that can save lives. Use money to help people instead of making them hate the police even more.
And it doesn't even have to be a soup kitchen. Free medical care, maybe. Or a daycare program for children. Headstart. The foster care system. Welfare. Any number of social services could use the funds that are being funneled into police armories.
What do we value more - tasers or warm meals?
