THE QUOTA SYSTEM OF MUNICIPAL FINANCE


Ever since the Ferguson, MO case came under the microscope of public attention, the BUSINESS of police and court fines has been cited as a major cause for those anti-Brown and anti-poor police interactions. These news articles show situations like this one, in which a Black young man to death at the hands of an officer when he reached for his wallet upon the officer’s command. The driver had made what perhaps was a major psychological mistake in telling the officer at all that he did have a firearm and a license for it.

This man, unfortunately, had a long string of traffic and parking violations, and his 50 or so traffic tickets came from those causes. He had no violence in his background and was a valued worker at the cafeteria of a local Catholic school. Of course, he was also a Black man who had dreads, according to his girlfriend, and when he drove through certain primarily white neighborhoods, would be pulled over for a minor reason and fined yet again. See the two Philando Castille case stories below.

Particularly clear on the issue of unfair policing are the Tax Foundation blog and video interview, which blames pressure on officers to write tickets for minor issues while possibly ignoring real crime as a cause of unethical policing. The officer in that case was fired for bucking the quota system. Much of this day-to-day harassment and bullying of the poor and ethnic minorities, potentially ending a shooting, that keeps hitting the news is due to pressure from the top ranks to crack down on these small issues with fines and arrests to the exclusion of more serious things.

That is the so-called “Broken Windows” philosophy of policing. It was under that sort of training that Darren Wilson engaged physically with a young black man who was “walking in the street” rather than on the sidewalk. That's just not a serious problem unless there's a great deal of traffic. Wilson claimed that Brown struggled with him over possession of his firearm, causing the first shot to be fired, with the whole situation escalating from there. Wilson said that he had received a complaint from headquarters about a black man “answering Brown’s description” stealing several packs of cigarillos in a corner store earlier. The problem I see, besides the needless loss of life, is the fact that very few crimes are ever used in a courtroom to justify the death penalty; and a scrape over someone walking in the street, or even stealing a handful of cigars, is certainly not one of those crimes.

Following those are several related articles. Which concern one of the main roots, besides pure racism, of course, of this terribly common pattern of policing, and that is the use of Quotas. http://kut.org/post/why-your-speeding-ticket-doesn-t-pay-what-you-think-it-does, puts the beginning at the state level.



http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/07/29/487922464/special-prosecutor-named-in-philando-castile-shooting-death

Outside Attorney Joining Prosecutors On Philando Castile Shooting Case
CAMILA DOMONOSKE
July 29, 2016 12:21 PM ET

Photograph -- A sign reading "Your Life Mattered" hangs on a lectern outside J.J. Hill Montessori School in St. Paul, Minn., on July 14, following a funeral service for Philando Castile at the Cathedral of St. Paul. Castile, who was a cafeteria manager at the school, was shot and killed by police on July 6., Stephen Maturen/Getty Images
THE TWO-WAY -- The Driving Life And Death Of Philando Castile

An outside attorney will be joining the team of prosecutors considering the possibility of charges in the killing of Philando Castile earlier this month in Minnesota, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi says.

Castile, a 32-year-old black man, was shot by a police officer during a traffic stop on July 6. As NPR reported at the time, video of the aftermath of the shooting sparked outrage and protests in Falcon Heights, Minn., and across the country:

"Castile's girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, began streaming video live on Facebook immediately after the officer fired. In the stream she said Castile was stopped for a broken taillight, had notified the officer that he was licensed to carry a handgun and was reaching for his wallet at the officer's request when he was shot. ...

"Minnesota's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is investigating, and Gov. Mark Dayton has asked the U.S. Justice Department to examine the case."

Valerie Castile, mother of Philando Castile, looks at a photo button of her son during a press conference on the state Capitol grounds in St. Paul, Minn., on Tuesday. Philando Castile was fatally shot by police July 6.

At a press conference Friday, Choi said he would be bringing in a "special prosecutor," Don Lewis, to work on the case — not to replace Choi, but to work with him.

Choi said that stepping aside from the case himself would be an abdication of his responsibility, and announced Lewis would be "an integral member of our team," Minnesota Public Radio reported:

"Choi, whose office will get the Castile case once the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension completes its investigation, emphasized that no decision had been made yet on any charges in the shooting, or whether the case will be taken to a grand jury.

"Lewis, who is African-American, vowed that his work on the Castile case would be "substantial, meaningful and visible."

"Lewis is a longtime fixture in Twin Cities legal circles. Besides his years as Hamline law school dean, he also served as an assistant United States Attorney for Minnesota. He led St. Paul's outside investigation into the 2013 landslide at Lilydale Regional Park, in which two children died.

"He also led an independent investigation into the 2014 arrest of community activist Al Flowers in Minneapolis. Ultimately, that investigation found no officer misconduct."

Some activists, including Flowers, questioned Lewis' independence, MPR reports.



http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/07/15/485835272/the-driving-life-and-death-of-philando-castile

The Driving Life And Death Of Philando Castile
Heard on Morning Edition
EYDER PERALTA
CHERYL CORLEY
July 15, 20164:51 AM ET

Photograph -- Valerie Castile, mother of Philando Castile, looks at a photo button of her son during a press conference on the state Capitol grounds in St. Paul, Minn., on Tuesday. Philando Castile was fatally shot by police July 6. Eric Miller/Reuters
Chart of traffic and parking violations -- Source: NPR analysis of court documents
Credit: Alyson Hurt and Eyder Peralta/NPR
NPR NEWS INVESTIGATIONS -- As Court Fees Rise, The Poor Are Paying The Price


Philando Castile's trouble with traffic stops began when he still had his learner's permit. He was stopped a day before his 19th birthday.

From there, he descended into a seemingly endless cycle of traffic stops, fines, court appearances, late fees, revocations and reinstatements in various jurisdictions.

Cycles Of Traffic Stops, Fines And Suspensions

Between July 2002 and his death in July 2016, Philando Castile was stopped by police at least 46 times. Some traffic stops kicked off months- and years-long spirals of fines, driver’s license suspensions and more traffic stops that Castile would eventually pay off or settle in court. He was most often cited for driving on a suspended license or lacking proof of insurance.

Court records raise big questions: Was Castile targeted by police? Or was he just a careless or unlucky driver?

An NPR analysis of those records shows that the 32-year-old cafeteria worker who was shot and killed by a police officer during a traffic stop in a St. Paul, Minn., suburb, was stopped by police 46 times and racked up more than $6,000 in fines. Another curious statistic: Of all of the stops, only six of them were things a police officer would notice from outside a car — things like speeding or having a broken muffler.

The records show that Castile spent most of his driving life fighting tickets. Three months after that first stop, for example, his license was suspended and he went into his first spiral: Police stopped him on Jan. 8, 2003. They stopped him on Feb. 3 and on Feb. 12 and Feb. 26 and on March 4.

"What Mr. Castile symbolizes for a lot of us working in public defense is that driving offenses are typically just crimes of poverty," says Erik Sandvick, a public defender in Ramsey County, which includes St. Paul and its suburbs.

When he heard about Castile in the news, his name sounded so familiar that Sandvick looked up the records and saw his own name listed as Castile's public defender in a 2006 case. He vaguely remembers Castile, but his story is like that of many other clients he's had. They get tickets they can't pay, and then they are ticketed over and over for driving with a suspended license or not having insurance.

The proliferation of court fees has prompted some states, like New Jersey, to use amnesty programs to encourage the thousands of people who owe fines to surrender in exchange for fee reductions. At the Fugitive Safe Surrender program, makeshift courtrooms allow judges to individually handle each case.

Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve, a professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Temple University and the author of Crook County, which documents the problems in the criminal justice system of Chicago, said Castile was the "classic case" of what criminologists have called "net widening," or the move by local authorities to criminalize more and more aspects of regular life.

"It is in particular a way that people of color and the poor are victimized on a daily basis," Gonzalez Van Cleve said.

Many times, both Gonzalez Van Cleve and Sandvick agree, the system leaves citizens with no good choices — having to pick, for instance, whether to pay a fine or pay for car insurance.

Timeline: June 3, 2005, to Feb. 27, 2006

DATE
DESCRIPTION
RESULT
June 3, 2005 Traffic stop He is charged with “impeding traffic,” which means going too slowly or perhaps blocking the box at an intersection. That charge is dismissed, but he is again convicted of having no proof of insurance. That means a year's probation and a $778 fine, which he has problems paying.
Moving violation
Fined $778
Put on probation
Dec. 20, 2005: His license is suspended because of nonpayment.

Larpenteur Avenue is a dividing line separating St. Paul from surrounding suburbs. Falcon Heights, where Castile was pulled over by St. Anthony police, is one of them. Maplewood, about 10 miles away, is another.

Maplewood Police Chief Paul Schnell said he couldn't comment about the Castile police stop, but he has seen the list of nearly 50 citations Castile received when driving through nearby communities.

"It seems like a lot," he said. "So it does prompt the question, what was the basis and why so many stops?"

Schnell says all of the communities along Larpenteur have policing priorities. He said many consider traffic enforcement good policing.

"Communities where they might not have demand for services, officers will be looking to take action, to do things, to produce, because that's one of the things that's being more and more expected," Schnell said.

In some ways, Schnell added, this is a cycle for everyone involved: Unable to dig themselves out, drivers may lose their licenses and police may run their plates.

"The registered owner pops up as driving after suspension or revocation, and that can often trigger the stop," Schnell said.

Castile's driving problems often appeared to be triggered by something small — a problem with his license plate or blocking an intersection. When he couldn't keep up with the fines, his license would get suspended, and he'd keep driving.

One six-year period in particular — from 2006 to 2012 — stands out. Castile was stopped 29 times. Sometimes he was fined $270, sometimes $150, but it kept adding up. He soon amassed more than $5,000 in fines.

"I am just baffled, and I've been pulled over in the same vehicle my brother died in," Castile's sister said. Allyza Castile thinks it was her brother's dreadlocks and the big sedans he loved to drive — like the Oldsmobile he was in — that made him stand out.

"I've been pulled over in that car for three or four times for the same exact reason — supposedly a broken taillight," she said. "When you run the plates, his name comes up, so I've been harassed driving his vehicle myself. So I know that they harass my brother."

Of course we don't know intent. Or if police knew something about Castile that's not in the public record.

University of Minnesota Law School professor Myron Orfield says this doesn't really surprise him. Back in 2003, he studied racial bias in policing.

The state-commissioned study found that African-Americans and Latinos were more likely to be stopped than whites. That was especially true as they crossed into mostly white suburbs — or through the borderlands, as the Twin Cities locals call it — where they were up to seven times more likely to be stopped by police.

"When you see those stark residential differences between neighboring communities, it's often a sign that there's some underlying discrimination going on," Orfield said.

This week, the St. Anthony Police Department released statistics on its traffic stops. They show that officers issue citations at the same rate as neighboring suburbs, but police disproportionately arrest African-Americans.

About 7 percent of the residents in the area patrolled are African-American, but this year they make up about 47 percent of arrests. The data show that since 2011, African-Americans have been making up a larger percentage of arrests.

The head of the Minneapolis NAACP, Nekima Levy-Pounds, compared the situation in the Twin Cities to Ferguson, Mo.

In the aftermath of the police killing of a black man there, the U.S. Department of Justice found Ferguson was more concerned about raising revenue than public safety.

"Shame on Falcon Heights," Levy-Pounds said during a speech at a rally. "They should have known that something was wrong. Shame on the St. Anthony Police Department for that money-making scheme."

In a statement, St. Anthony City Manager Mark Casey said the data unfortunately show that St. Anthony and Falcon Heights face many of the same challenges that Minneapolis, St. Paul and other cities do.

"We do share concerns about the information and what it represents," Casey said. "Racial inequality, in terms of arrests, citations and incarceration, is a complex yet urgent challenge for all of us."

He said St. Anthony and other suburbs are continuing to review how officers are trained and engaged in activities addressing racism and bias issues. But he didn't say how and did not specifically address the issue of traffic fines.

During some periods of his life, Castile was sometimes able to emerge from a mountain of fines.

From 2012 to late 2014 — like clockwork — he paid off fine after fine, some of them more than $500 a month.

"He was trying to make it right," said Beverly Castile, Philando's aunt. "And it was right. He paid off all his tickets, got his license back and everything else. It was done right."

But about three months after he was done with probation, he was stopped again — for "improper display of original plate." By January of this year, his license was suspended, but he quickly paid $275 to get it back.

Last week, police stopped Castile once again.

Castile's girlfriend, who was in the car, said it was because of a broken taillight. But in scanner traffic audio obtained this week by Minnesota Public Radio, a nonchalant officer, yet to be confirmed as Jeronimo Yanez, told dispatchers a different story.

"Two occupants just look like people who were involved in a robbery," he said. "The driver looks more like one of our suspects, just because of the wide-set nose."

Gloria Hatchett, an attorney for the Castile family, said that's racial profiling.

"How do you say, 'There's a robbery suspect with a broad nose, African-American?' " she said. "That's equivalent to saying there's a white woman with blond hair."

What happened next is unclear. Was Castile just reaching for his ID, or was he reaching for his gun?

What we know is that Yanez fired his weapon.

What we know is that throughout his life, Castile was stopped by police at least 46 times before that moment.

If there was anyone familiar with the routine and perils of a traffic stop, it was Philando Castile.

The July 6 stop was his last.

Alyson Hurt, Sarah Knight and Avery Lill contributed to this report.



http://taxfoundation.org/blog/police-ticket-quotas-revenue-source

Police Ticket Quotas as a Revenue Source
By Scott Drenkard
August 05, 2013

MUST WATCH – Video interview with “Good Cop” who wants to do a fair and honest job; Huffington Post journalist Radley Balko

Reason TV recently released a rather persuasive video on the effect of police quotas on civil liberties. It tells the story of Auburn police officer Justin Hanners, who saw the new quota imposed in Auburn, Alabama as antithetical to why he joined the police in the first place. It’s worth a watch: “Cop Fired For Speaking Out Against Quota …” Reason.TV.

One of the more common arguments you’ll hear from quota supporters is that quotas are designed to bring in revenue to keep local taxes (usually property taxes) down. But while keeping moderate tax burdens is important, quotas change the very essence of the relationship between citizens and the government.

Government levies come in three major types: taxes, fees, and penalties. Taxes are different from fees in that their revenue is used for general government functions. Fees, by contrast, are extracted in exchange for a service that directly benefits the person that pays them (think of tolls that pay for roads). Penalties like speeding tickets and other police punishments are different from taxes and fees in that their primary purpose is to discourage behavior. I would go so far as to say that the fact that they happen to collect revenue is tangential. Taxes and fees are for funding government, penalties are for keeping order.

Instead of a broad-based tax system where people pay taxes in rough proportion to the benefits they get from government services, setting a requirement of revenue gathered from penalties creates a system where police authorities are incentivized to seek out ever more infractions and discouraged from practicing good judgment. Officer Hanners points out that the Auburn quota made for a police force that made “72,000 [police] contacts [per] year in like a 50,000 person town.” As Huffington Post journalist Radley Balko puts it in the video, "You have a policy that encourages police to create petty crimes and ignore serious crimes, and that's clearly the opposite of what we want our police to be doing.”



http://azchiefsofpolice.org/speeding-parking-tickets-on-rise-as-government-revenue-source/

Speeding, Parking Tickets on Rise as Government Revenue Source
November 24, 2015 By azchiefs

Drivers across the country, beware - a heftier fine could be coming to a dashboard near you. Faced with rising deficits and dwindling revenues, many states and local municipalities are turning to increased traffic and parking fines to fill their coffers.

In California, the cost of a "fix-it ticket" nearly tripled on Jan. 1, meaning that drivers in the Golden State can pay up to $100 for having a broken headlight - an infraction that didn't even garner a citation years ago. A bill approved by the state Legislature raised fix-it fines to $25 from $10 and hiked surcharges on regular traffic tickets by $35. Parking tickets and court costs to attend traffic school also increased, by $3 and $25 respectively.

Motorists in Pensacola, Fla., saw fines for parking in front of a fire hydrant or in a fire lane skyrocket from $10 to $100 - a 900 percent increase - after the city's Downtown Improvement Board reportedly unanimously approved the hike earlier this month. Statewide, speeding fines also increased by $10 this month, along with an increase of an additional $25 for exceeding the speed limit by 15 to 29 miles per hour.

And in the Boston suburb of Malden, Mass., Police Chief Kenneth Coye urged officers to bring in revenue for the cash-strapped suburb by writing at least one parking or traffic ticket per shift.

"We need to increase enforcement in areas that create revenue . write 'ONE TAG A DAY,'" Coye told officers in a memo obtained by the Boston Herald.

Coye said tickets are crucial to maintaining quality of life, the Herald reported. He did not return several requests for comment from FOXNews.com.

According to a study in this month's Journal of Law and Economics, local governments like Malden use traffic citations to bridge budget shortfalls. Researchers Thomas Garrett and Gary Wagner examined revenue and traffic citation data from 1990 to 2003 in 96 counties in North Carolina, and they discovered that the number of citations issued increases in years that follow a drop in revenue.

They got the idea for the study when Garrett, assistant vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, got an exorbitant ticket for speeding in Pennsylvania.

Garrett likened traffic violations to a "hidden tax," like hotel occupancy taxes, that can easily be passed on to to out-of-state tourists.

"When times are tough, it's often harder to increase revenue through traditional means like increasing sales and property taxes," Garrett said. "And traffic tickets certainly fit that bill."

Critics complain that whereas property taxes are proportionally tied to property values, motorist fines are flat taxes that have a harder impact on lower-income drivers; the laborer going 80 mph in a 12-year-old Kia pays the same fine as the trust-fund heir going 80 in his brand-new Ferrari.

But the tickets generate needed municipal income, and that's why they're on the rise. Wagner, a professor at the University of Arkansas Little Rock, said there is a "significant correlation" between revenue and the number of citations.

"We don't know that someone's actually been told to go out and issue tickets for revenue, but if police are incentivized to step up enforcement, that naturally results in more tickets," Wagner told FOXNews.com. "More tickets were issued when revenues declined."

The study, "Red Ink in the Rearview Mirror: Local Fiscal Conditions and the Issuance of Traffic Tickets," also found no significant drop in tickets when revenues rebounded.

Wagner and Garrett said there's no reason to believe the findings don't apply elsewhere.

"The incentives aren't just in North Carolina, it could apply anywhere," Garrett said. "The results pretty much speak for themselves."

Bonnie Sesolak, development director of the National Motorists Association, said the study backs years of anecdotal evidence.

"It's been no secret that municipalities have always tried to fill their coffers from traffic citations," she said. "Once that money starts flowing in, it's really hard to cut it off."

While recognizing the need for traffic enforcement, Sesolak said the increased focus on issuing citations could spread officers thin in some areas.

"They're making lawbreakers out of people who normally aren't," she said. "Their manpower could be better spent in other areas."

And the trend could further disenfranchise low-income drivers who receive the same fine as drivers in higher salary brackets, she said.

"If they can't afford to pay their fine, they're still going to get to work to feed their families," Sesolak said. "They're going to drive regardless."

Barbara Anderson, executive director of Massachusetts' Citizens for Limited Taxation, said she found Police Chief Coye's memo "disturbing" and questioned why local police officers hadn't been issuing tickets with proper discretion all along.

"It's disturbing when you come to realize that laws many of us try to obey are not being upheld in any predictable way," Anderson said. "So then you ask, who does get picked on? What makes the decision when you're going to enforce the law?"

The American Trucking Associations, which represents more than 37,000 members, said its drivers back efforts to enforce traffic laws. "But legitimate law enforcement reasons, not revenue needs, should determine the nature and extent of those efforts," a statement from ATA read.

Meanwhile, Dennis Slocumb, vice president of the International Union of Police Associations, said he was unaware of any "concerted effort" by law enforcement officers to write more tickets during tough financial times.

"The IUPA remains opposed to any type of ticket quotas that might be considered by state or municipal employees as an effort to increase public revenue," a statement by Slocumb read.

Moving violations aside, more than a dozen states are considering giving police officers the authority to pull over motorists solely for not wearing their seatbelts. The states - including Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia - must pass a bill with the governor's approval by June 30 to be eligible for millions in federal money, the Associated Press reported.

Ohio, which is facing a projected $7.3 billion budget deficit over the next two years, would receive $26.8 million if it enacts primary seat-belt enforcement laws to match those of 26 states and the District of Columbia, according to the AP.

"If there's a time to be more cautious, our results suggest that time is now," Wagner said. "But the smart thing is, if you want to keep your money, you should always obey traffic laws."
Information contributed by: FOX News



http://kut.org/post/why-your-speeding-ticket-doesn-t-pay-what-you-think-it-does

Why Your Speeding Ticket Doesn’t Pay For What You Think it Does
By TYLER WHITSON & JOY DIAZ • APR 22, 2015

Photograph -- When Austinites pay traffic tickets and fines, where does that money end up? SARAH JASMINE MONTGOMERY/KUT
KUT News -- kut.org/, KUT A public radio station operated by the University of Texas at Austin. Includes RealAudio feed.

Travis County and the City of Austin take part in a regular fiscal dance with the State of Texas over who pays the costs of government. Over the next three days, KUT News and the Austin Monitor will look at key examples of that interaction in our series, “The Buck Starts Here.” Today, we take on Austin’s Municipal Courts.

When Austin residents are handed traffic tickets or other Municipal Court fees and fines, they likely assume that the city is profiting handsomely from those often colorful sheets of paper. If they could see where those revenues go, however, they might come to a different conclusion.

In fact, the city’s current budget projects that the court will face a roughly $3.7 million shortfall in the fiscal year that started in October by incurring about $19.7 million in general expenses and pulling in about $16 million in general revenue. On top of that, it projects that the court will fall short in three of its special revenue funds and break even on the fourth.

Though there are many reasons this might be happening, one view among those involved is that the Texas Legislature has made it difficult for municipal and county courts to balance their budgets by tasking them with administering certain fees and sending the bulk of the revenue back to the state. In many cases, the court keeps only between 5 to 10 percent of the fees it collects.

Mayor Steve Adler told the Austin Monitor and KUT News that he believes the situation is “a pretty good example” of an unfunded mandate, or a requirement that one government imposes on a smaller one without budgeting adequate money for implementation.

“We have a system that's been set by the state, and the state takes its share and leaves us to do a program with less funds than what the program costs,” Adler said. “We have to cover that shortfall with other revenue.”

Noting that the city's main sources of revenue are sales and property taxes, Adler said that the fee system is, in part, “one of the reasons why people's property taxes are at the level that they are at.”

A 2014 study of court costs and fees in Texas that was directed by the 83rd Legislature and carried out by the Office of Court Administration, or OCA, indicates that the state government is in a more enviable situation than local governments.

One view among those involved is that the Texas Legislature has made it difficult for municipal and county courts to balance their budgets by tasking them with administering certain fees and sending the bulk of the revenue back to the state. In many cases, the court keeps only between 5 to 10 percent of the fees it collects.
“Most court fees and costs end up being transmitted in whole or in part to the state,” the report reads. “On the other hand, court fees and costs are generally insufficient to cover the cost of funding the judiciary at the local government level, with expenditures for the judiciary oftentimes far surpassing collected revenues from court fees and costs.”

The Municipal Court is in charge of administering Class C misdemeanors, which include both city and state offenses. Most of the revenue the court collects goes to the city’s general fund, which is also its primary funding source. Revenues from certain fees go into special revenue funds that the city can access for specific purposes, such as juvenile case management.

According to its most recent annual report, the court made more money on traffic tickets than any other source of revenue in the last fiscal year, hauling in about $6.9 million, or 42 percent of the revenue it contributed to the city’s general fund. The court’s next top source was parking tickets, which comprised $3.4 million, or 20 percent of its general revenue.

Base fines and court costs for various levels of speeding tickets.
When individuals receive those tickets, however, they’re generally not told what they’re being required to pay for.

When the Monitor requested the breakdown of a “typical” speeding ticket, the court provided the fees and fines it assesses for speeding in a 30 mph zone. The ticket consists of a laundry list of set fees, some of which the state has mandated and some of which the city has adopted, along with a municipal “base fine” that goes to the general fund and is determined by the driver’s speed.

According to OCA Assistant General Counsel Ted Wood, a fine differs from a fee in that it is a punishment that a judge sets within a certain range prescribed by the Legislature. Fees, also known as court costs, are not punitive and are meant to recuperate court costs. Typically, judges cannot waive or change court costs.

The set fees total $103.10, of which $76.39 goes to the state and $26.71 goes to the city for various purposes. The base fine ranges from $41.90 to $171.90 for driving between less than 5 mph to more than 25 mph over the speed limit. A driver caught going 39 miles per hour, for example, would receive a $165 ticket.

The two most substantial state-mandated fees in the ticket are a $40 “consolidated fee” and a $30 “state traffic fee.” The state gets 90 and 95 percent of these, respectively, and the city gets what is left over.

It is likely that the consolidated fee, listed in the OCA report as the “consolidated court cost,” generates substantial revenue for the state. It applies to all felonies at $133, all Class A and B misdemeanors at $83 and all “non-jailable misdemeanor offenses … other than a conviction relating to a pedestrian or the parking of a motor vehicle” — such as speeding tickets — at $40.

According to the report, the consolidated court cost is allocated to 14 places in the state budget. The top three destinations, based on the percentage of revenue they receive, are the compensation to victims of crime fund, the criminal justice planning account in the general revenue fund, and the law enforcement and custodial office supplemental retirement fund.

About two-thirds of the state traffic fee, listed as the “state traffic fine” in the report, goes to the state’s general fund, while the remainder is earmarked for trauma and emergency medical services funding. In certain cases, surplus revenue will go to the Texas Mobility Fund.

The OCA notes in its report that it and the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts treat the state traffic fine as a fee, despite the ambiguity of its name.

Harris County Public Defender Jani Maselli Wood, who happens to be married to Ted Wood, has challenged most of the fees that make up the consolidated court cost in a case called Orlando Salinas v. the State of Texas. It is pending at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest court for criminal matters.

According to data from the Municipal Court, it collected about $30.3 million in gross revenue and bonds during the last fiscal year and submitted about $9.3 million of that to the state. It also allocated about $2.1 million to other agencies 'as required by law and contractual obligations.'
Maselli Wood the Monitor and KUT that she believes the fees she has challenged are not going to the courts — or even the judiciary — and are therefore unconstitutional. She went on to argue that many state-mandated court costs and fees may be regarded as “hidden taxes for people who are convicted of offenses, including Class C misdemeanors.

Others might argue in favor of the consolidated court costs and say that criminals should be obligated to carry their weight as far as funding the criminal justice system. From that perspective, requiring a resident charged with a crime to chip in to the compensation to victims of crime fund may be considered reasonable. Whether it is constitutional, though, will be up to the courts to decide.

Regardless, the system has a clear financial impact on the Municipal Court. According to data it provided to the Monitor, the court collected about $30.3 million in gross revenue and bonds during the last fiscal year and submitted about $9.3 million of that to the state. It also allocated about $2.1 million to other agencies “as required by law and contractual obligations.”

These other agencies, according to the court, include the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, the Austin Independent School District, the city’s school crossing guard program, a collections company called the Municipal Services Bureau and a database company, Omnibase.

In state fiscal year 2013, which started in September 2012, the OCA report says that “court cost and filing fees generated over $408 million in revenue deposited to the state, while the total Article IV general revenue and general revenue-dedicated appropriations in that same fiscal year were just under $219 million.”

Article IV of the Texas Constitution refers to the state’s executive branch.

Though this is not necessarily an apples-to-apples comparison, Adler commented generally on the revelation. “The state is able to get a surplus that it can then put into its general fund to put into other things,” he said. “I wish the city were in that position.”

Though city budget data for fiscal year 2013 does not match up perfectly with current figures because of a switch to a new accounting method, the budget shows that the Municipal Court made $2.6 million that year, incurring about $13.9 million in general costs and taking in about $16.4 million in general revenue.

Staff wrote in the budget that the accounting change was intended “to provide a more complete picture of the true costs for each department and to bring the City of Austin in line with budgeting practices of other municipalities.” If that is the case, costs in fiscal year 2013 were likely higher than what was reported.

Of course, the Austin Municipal Court is not the only one in the state that is on the hook for revenue. According to the Texas Municipal League, an association that lobbies on behalf of cities in Texas, municipal courts collected over $229 million in what it refers to as “state fee/fine revenue” in 2013. County courts also must submit revenue to the state.

Reform efforts are underway in the Legislature. The same law that directed the OCA report — Senate Bill 1908, filed by Sen. Royce West (D-Dallas) — led West to file SB 287 in order to eliminate certain court fees and costs that have been deemed unnecessary. It has been engrossed in the Senate and sent to the House.

House Bill 1516, filed by Rep. Armando Walle (D-Houston), would require that an individual charged with a court cost receive an itemized bill before having to pay. It is currently pending in the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee.

Maselli Wood said she was planning to testify in favor of the bill at its hearing on April 8. “There's no transparency in government to get an itemized cost bill,” she said.

“If people were aware of it, they could talk to their own legislators and say, ‘Look, why am I being charged this consolidated court cost when I got a traffic ticket and paid through the mail?’” she continued. “There would be more rumbling if people knew exactly what they were paying.”



BELOW, SEE COMMENTS FROM THE INTERESTING WEBSITE QUORA. THESE ARE OFFICER ANSWERS ON THE QUESTION OF QUOTAS, TAKEN FROM THEIR OWN EXPERIENCES.

AS A MATTER OF DEPARTMENTAL MANDATE, IT SEEMS TO VARY WIDELY FROM LOCATION TO LOCATION, AND IS USUALLY UNPOPULAR WITH THE OFFICERS. THERE ARE ALSO STATES WHICH MAKE SUCH QUOTAS ILLEGAL.

THERE IS NO INDICATION OF A FEDERAL LAW PROHIBITING IT, THOUGH. THIS IS ONE OF SEVERAL POLICING ISSUES WHICH, I BELIEVE, SHOULD BE CONTROLLED ON A NATIONAL BASIS AND NOT BY STATE, AS THEY DIRECTLY AFFECT RACIAL AND ETHNIC UNFAIRNESS IN POLICING.

LET’S FACE IT, QUOTAS INFLUENCE AN OFFICER’S INCOME. THAT’S A PERSONAL TEMPTATION. AS A RESULT, THEY NEED SOMONE TO PULL OVER, AND IT’S JUST EASIER FOR A POLICEMAN TO GET AWAY WITH HARASSING A BLACK OR BROWN SKINNED MAN/WOMAN THAN A WHITE. WHITES ARE MORE LETIGIOUS THAN THOSE OF OTHER RACES.

I WISH TO QUICKLY EXPLAIN THAT NOT ALL OFFICER CONTACT, EVEN OVER A TAILLIGHT, IS A SILLY WASTE OF EVERYONE’S TIME, BUT A BLACK/BROWN SKINNED PERSON IS STATISTICALLY MORE LIKELY TO BE STOPPED IN THOSE CASES THAN IS A WHITE. AS WITH OTHER RACIAL ISSUES, WE NEED TO INTERVENE TO PROTECT EVERYONE’S CIVIL RIGHTS. THE FACT THAT CASTILE WAS KILLED IS A TERRIBLE RESULT TO A COMMONPLACE SITUATION THAT I SIMPLY CAN’T TAKE AS “PAR FOR THE COURSE.” IT NEEDS TO BE CURTAILED, IF IT CAN’T BE TOTALLY STOPPED.



https://www.quora.com/Do-police-officers-have-monthly-ticket-quotas

Do police officers have monthly ticket quotas? The victims of speeding tickets often bemoan this as the reason they were pulled over. Are quotas commonplace?

Tim Dees, Retired cop and criminal justice professor, Reno Police Department, Reno Muni...

30.1k Views · Upvoted by Bill Stein, Former Air Force Security Forces Augmentee, third-generation Law Enforcement and Al Saibini, Retired federal agent and deputy sheriff
Most Viewed Writer in Police and Law Enforcement with 2340+ answers
Originally Answered: Do cops / police have quotas to fill?

Reports of quotas or "target goals" appear now and then at various agencies, most recently within the NYPD on "stop and frisk" reports and certain traffic violations like talking on a cell phone while driving. Traffic ticket quotas are illegal under most state laws and they tend to get reported by the cops on whom they are imposed, who don't like them.

Some law enforcement officers, especially those whose primary duty is traffic enforcement based on self-generated "on sight" activity, do have performance standard metrics. Rather than requiring a certain number of citations per hour or per shift, they are more commonly measured in "citizen contacts." A contact can be a traffic stop (that might or might not result in one or more citations), an assist of a stranded motorist, or a field interview of a hitchhiker or some other suspicious person. Unless you're working a very lonely area, it's not difficult to generate a citizen contact per hour, but not all of them will be enforcement stops.

Officers in other roles may have no pressure to write tickets at all. At my former agency, there was a traffic division that mainly did traffic enforcement and accident investigation. The patrol division handled most calls for service and other basic policing duties. Patrol supervisors didn't care if we wrote tickets or not. One of my academy classmates wrote four tickets during his first ten years on the department, all of which were in patrol. At our ten-year celebration (we were vested in the retirement system at ten years), he still had the first book of citations we had been issued in the academy.

There are various federally-funded programs intended to target certain traffic offenses, like DUI, speeding, or seat belt use. If an officer is assigned to one of these programs, he is usually on overtime and is expected to produce citations charging the targeted violation(s) (any others are icing on the cake). If he doesn't produce the expected number consistently, he will probably be denied further overtime opportunities. This might cause the officer to make stops he would otherwise let go by, although it's still not kosher to fabricate reasonable suspicion for the stop, and certainly not to make false accusations. That invites perjury, which will cost the cop his career and possibly land him in jail.

Written Oct 20, 2012 · View Upvotes
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Roger Curtiss
Roger Curtiss, Retired Detective
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Quota is a dirty word in law enforcement. It is called instead, a minimum performance standard which can vary amongst departments.

I worked in a department where it was 10 & 10. Ten movers/ten parkers a month.

Another department made it 10 movers (crash citations did not count) but the chief preferred if you wrote no parking tickets as he received more complaints from those than from anything else.

I also worked briefly in a very small department which had no business tax base but did have a small section of a freeway running through it. So the police department was basically funded from traffic citation revenue. You weren't paid directly by the number of tickets you wrote, but it was tacitly understood that if that revenue stream was to dry up the department would face personnel cutbacks.

Written Aug 28, 2014 · View Upvotes
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India L. J. Mitchell
India L. J. Mitchell, Retired Police officer
58.3k Views · India has 360+ answers and 17 endorsements in Police and Law Enforcement
There is an old joke among police officers.

Citizen: "Do you have a quota of tickets you have to write?"

Officer: "No, I can write as many as I want."

And this is true to some extent. But it is also true that there is an unwritten policy that if you do not write any citations, you must not be doing your job. Some officers just do not like writing citations. They don't like making traffic stops and will only do so if the driver has done something so obvious, and in front of other civilians, that the officer feels obligated to stop the driver for safety reasons. That still does not mean that he or she will write a citation.

In my agency, those of us in patrol had to keep a "Daily." This would be a formal document that showed the times, addresses where we went, written in code, of what we had done.

On the back were boxes for how many traffic citations, criminal citations, parking citations and felony and misdemeanor arrests we had made on that day.

I frequently commented that the form didn't represent how many people we stopped from committing suicide. Or how many domestic disputes we settled or how many missing children we found. So that "daily" never really adequately represented what my day really involved and often, by the numbers, could look as though I did nothing at all.

However, if you are working the "Traffic Unit" then writing citations is an intregal part of your job and if you write no citations, you are going to be asked why.
So as is frequently the case, each police agency has different policies. I am sure there are some that do require a certain number of citations.

Anonymous
5.6k Views
New York City has always denied that such quotas exist. However, in the summer and fall of 2010, evidence came out that NYPD brass had been effectively encouraging such quotas anyway. This lead to the investigation of several high ranking police officials, the dismissal of at least one, the transfer of several others and significant persecution of the whistleblowing cop, Adrian Schoolcraft (he was involuntarily committed on dubious grounds). It's been quite the scandal.

The article that first broke the case:
http://www.villagevoice.com/2010...

Subsequent developments:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/1...
Written Jan 15, 2011 · View Upvotes
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Andrew Brown
Andrew Brown, One day I'll write you a ticket
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In Rolla, MO, the answer is no. Police officers do not have a set number of tickets they need to write over any period of time.

I can't speak for other stations, but I imagine they'd have similar policies.
Updated Dec 1, 2010 · View Upvotes
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Vicky A Cravey
Vicky A Cravey, I love to learn. What I haven't learned and can't look up, I'll ask. What I h...
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Some cities do have quotas. But they can't pull you over for that reason. They reach them by paying more attention to their surroundings, working harder at pulling over violators and refusing to give the drivers "a break".

But they can't "make up" offenses, such as accusing a driver for running a red light when he didn't, and of course, they can't rip off your tags and write you up for failure to display updated tags.

You always have the right to fight the summons, and it's in your best interest to plead "no contest" or "not guilty" in court. Pleading "guilty" will almost always assure you consequences. Also, take in as much information as you can. Videotape the lights changing from the position of the officer's perspective, for instance. Take pictures, gather your DMV records (there may be a fee), anything you can use to plead your case. By the way, judges tend to take the case more seriously if you hire a lawyer. If an insurance hike is compromised, for instance, it would behoove you to hire one.

You can also "negotiate" your sentence. For example, if you are sentenced to six weeks in jail, but you're job is threatened, you can ask the judge for a lighter sentence, ask to drop points and take driver improvement classes (which can now be taken online), to reduce the fine in exchange of community service, even ask if you could draw out the jail term and spend the time on weekends, only. It couldn't hurt to ask. If you are a first time offender, he may lighten up on you or accept a reasonable request.
Written Feb 19, 2011 · View Upvotes
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Joe Stanganelli
Joe Stanganelli, Founder and principal of Beacon Hill Law
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It depends upon the community, although there is a lot of pressure universally to increase traffic ticket revenue.

Some do not (or so we are told).

In some communities/jurisdictions, there are quotas for pullovers -- warnings and tickets combined. In such a case, it does not matter whether the officer gives you a warning or a ticket, so long as he gives you something.

In others, there is a true quota for speeding tickets. (Indeed, through local government connections, I am explicitly aware of at least one town in the Greater Boston area that has such a ticket quota.)