
Small towns in much of the country are dependent on punitive fines and fees - wglb
https://www.governing.com/topics/finance/gov-addicted-to-fines.html
======
btilly
Punitive fines and fees are bad. Abuse of civil forfeiture is worse. But worse
still are a minority of towns that not only are dependent on punitive fines,
but that levy them in a racially biased way.

See [https://www.npr.org/2014/08/25/343143937/in-ferguson-
court-f...](https://www.npr.org/2014/08/25/343143937/in-ferguson-court-fines-
and-fees-fuel-anger) for an explanation of how this helped ignite the racial
tension that Ferguson had a few years ago.

~~~
frittig
> and then arresting people when they don't pay [the fine].

So what should the government do if someone doesn't pay their fine?

~~~
xoa
> _So what should the government do if someone doesn 't pay their fine?_

Just go through the process of taking the money instead, no different then a
civil party who was owed a legitimate debt? There is no reason a fine should
be any different. Just go through the standard process, get a court order for
lien, and then just seize the money from any bank accounts, liquid assets,
salary, or property of any value the person in question has (or ever will have
in the future up to the statute of limitations). In fact the only real
difference is that I don't think a fine is dischargeable in bankruptcy.

But why do you think there is any need to use force against the person in
question, or pay to imprison them? It's not some moral issue, it's just a
matter of them legitimately owing money. So just take the money (possibly
allowing the working out of a payment plan). For the vast majority of cases
that's all that's needed, and the few who truly live as hermits can be written
off and suffer their own effective punishment anyway.

~~~
frittig
ya, I guess that makes sense. Thanks for being the first person to explain it
to me like that.

------
wil421
In Georgia you can see the path I-75 and I-16 take through the southern half
of the state.

16 is notorious for speed traps and other shadier stuff. Including road blocks
on exit ramps with drug dogs waiting to sniff cars. They bait people into
getting off at the exits by leaving fake signs about upcoming road blocks.
When College kids were moving or getting out of school they’d be out in full
force.

Sadly my Dad grew up in one of these towns. The fines were the only way to
keep parts of the town alive.

~~~
bksenior
If you've driven between LA and SF you'll most likely be very aware of Kings
County. A notorious speed trap that requires you to be on site to contest
their questionable infractions.

~~~
mc32
If you’re in the “Jefferson” counties of northern California it’s not unusual
to have cops waiting at the bottom of an off ramp for those drivers who
practice “California rolls” at their stop signs. Locals seem to know better.

------
not_a_cop75
Hell, I'd say that any town that leverages against the economically poor to
benefit the economically elite is bad, and just going by the way fines are
handed out, that happens everywhere. Only a handful of countries fine you by
according to how much you make. While doing this can add an extra incentive
for the rich to be dishonest (which happens anyway), by not doing it you are
essentially telling the rich that they are above the law - which is something
that large swaths of ultrarich both already believe and know to be true.

~~~
distances
I'm from a country with so-called day fines: a fine is a multiplier of your
daily earnings. It boggles my mind that a similar system isn't in use
everywhere. It's easy to understand and fair to everyone; a deterrent against
infractions independent of your income.

~~~
appleiigs
If it was independent to your income, then your income should not matter. The
fine should be proportional to the infraction/crime/damage.

~~~
pessimizer
If I were moderately wealthy, there would be no incentive not to just think of
the fine as a fee to break any ordinance wherever and whenever I wanted. Fines
aren't costs, they are a deterrent.

~~~
appleiigs
Part deterrent, part punishment. Consider if I punched you in the face, you
laughed it off and I get charged with assault; versus: I punch you, you're now
disabled for life, and I get charged with assault. Should it be based on my
income?

~~~
distances
That would not be based on day fines; fines and compensation are two different
topics. "Disabled for life" sounds like prison time plus monetary compensation
for the victim.

~~~
appleiigs
Right, which is my point. I think it should be proportional to the
infraction/crime/damages. (Anyway, I am just having a conversation, will have
to understand it better.)

~~~
distances
It is still proportional to the crime, right? Just like with prison sentence:
withholding of freedom is the deterrent part, and it hurts both rich and poor
the same pretty much everywhere in the world (ignoring corruption). Day fines
follow the same deterrent principle for smaller infractions: proportional to
the crime _and_ treats citizens in a roughly equal manner.

Compensating someone for damages, be it for the victim's health or
possessions, is then supposed to follow the real inflicted costs and does not
include a deterring component, thus monetarily equal regardless of the
perpetrator's income. I'd suppose this is the same almost everywhere?

Edit: so to clarify, compensation paid to the victim isn't based on your
income, only the fines part that is paid to the state as a deterrent is.

------
motohagiography
If they are going to use minor violations of the law as a pretext for revenue
collection, they should call it what it is: kleptocracy.

If those places are dying out, it's probably best to let them turn into ghost
towns because they have succumbed to corruption as a way of life.

~~~
duxup
I think Kleptocracy would only apply if the folks in charge are funneling
funds to themselves.

If it is just what funds the government, that isn't a kleptocracy. Bad policy
maybe, but not kleptocracy.

~~~
mikeash
The folks in charge get paid by the government and the amount the government
is able to pay is highly dependent on the amount of funding it gets.

~~~
JackFr
Small town government is student council with armed sheriffs.

In the majority of these jurisdictions, the local government is not actually
doing useful work towards a flourishing community, or perhaps to be fair, they
aren't doing any useful work that couldn't be done more fairly and effectively
at the state level.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
>they aren't doing any useful work that couldn't be done more fairly and
effectively at the state level.

Or equally fairly and effectively without having it officially orchestrated by
the government.

------
SteveNuts
There are a few small towns in Minnesota where you will see an officer posted
up right where the highway turns from 65mph to 45mph through town. They will
be there almost all day, without fail.

I don't think it's a coincidence that their cruisers are all brand new. It's
obviously a source of income more than anything.

~~~
drivers99
There aren't any Minnesota towns on the map in the article so it must not be
more than 10%, presumably.

It is interesting to see some towns that are famous in my local area for it:

Morrison, CO (45.3%). 150,000 drivers pass through it daily, with a population
of 431. It's hard to argue with as they stop people if they're going 15 MPH
over the limit. [1] I think people here just get used to the lack of
enforcement of the other cities.

Mountain View, CO is only 0.09 sq mi (0.24 km2), population ~528. Sandwiched
between Denver and the next suburb over, writes more tickets combined than
Denver, Boulder, and Aurora. A lot of the tickets are for things like
seatbelts and cracked windshields [2].

[1]
[https://www.speedtrap.org/colorado/morrison/](https://www.speedtrap.org/colorado/morrison/)
Quote: "They got me going 41 in a 25. $135 ticket. They are making a killing
by gouging people for no reason so beware!" LOL

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_View,_Colorado#Police...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_View,_Colorado#Police_department_controversies)

~~~
lazerpants
I'm not sure if 285 technically runs through Morrison, but there are lots of
tickets issued right there because it is essentially a highway but has a low
speed limit. They could raise the speed limit by 10-20mph and it would
probably still be safe. There are also several elevation changes that make it
easier for a traffic officer to hide.

Weird that Mountain View is in the mix. Maybe it's just a statistical anomaly
because the "town" is tiny and is actually in a metro area and may include a
portion I-70.

~~~
drivers99
If you search for either town in Google Maps, it draws their boundaries, which
will be useful for this thread.

Morrison looks like a gerrymander: it runs along roads, and has some other
parts that are unused pieces of land, and doesn't include private property
that is being used even though it is next to it. It really does look like it
was designed to cover roads that have nothing to do with the actual downtown
part of Morrison.

Mountain View is between W 41st Ave and W 44th Ave (which looks like a fairly
busy road). I just noticed they are only at 5.3% in the report though. [1]
That's not even 10% (and a lot more than Morrison's 45%.)

Since you mentioned I-70, on the other hand there is Lakeside: Mountain View
actually borders another tiny "town" (population 8), Lakeside, which consists
of a lake, shopping center, and amusement park, and I-70 and related on/off-
ramps. According to the map in the report [1], Lakeside is on the map but at
13.5% revenue from tickets.

[1] [https://www.governing.com/topics/finance/fine-fee-
revenues-s...](https://www.governing.com/topics/finance/fine-fee-revenues-
special-report.html)

------
testplzignore
Read
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Rome,_Ohio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Rome,_Ohio)
if you'd like to see how extreme this kind of corruption can get. It could be
described as a military occupation of part of the United States by a rogue
nation.

~~~
Balgair
Along those lines:

Lyons CO, a town along the highway from Denver to Rocky Mountain National Park
has a section where the speed limit drops from 55 to 25 within about 1/4th
mile. Cops sit there all day long just fining tourists.

Kingman AZ is essentially a speed trap with more steps.

Just about any village on I-50 in Nevada does the speed step down too,
typically from 75 to 35, as the highway goes through the village. The cops are
typically not very well hidden either. As is similar to the Rome OH situation,
if you are within sight, you are getting a fine. _Top Gear_ ran into this
issue in Season 12, episode 2 [0] and Clarkson was quite irrate on screen.
Fortunately, I-80 is a much better and faster way across Nevada.

[0]
[https://www.topgear.com/show/series-12/episode-2](https://www.topgear.com/show/series-12/episode-2)

------
deadmetheny
There's lots of towns very well-known for being speed traps in my part of the
Midwest. My hometown in particular has a police force of approximately 8 full-
time officers for a population of 5,000. There's absolutely no good reason to
have so many cops for a population of that size, especially when the crime
statistics are very low for non-traffic infractions. The only traffic ticket
I've gotten in 30+ years was at 12:30 AM coming home from a concert in a
larger city, going 5 MPH over the speed limit there. I'm sure he was pissed
off that he couldn't also write me up for a DUI.

~~~
Excel_Wizard
The U.S. has 284 police officers per 100,000
people.([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_number_of_police_officers))
That would translate to ~14 police officers for a town of your size.

~~~
deadmetheny
Ok, sure, but that's not really a useful metric for a low population density
area. Crime in my area is very low, violent crime especially, there's simply
no need for that many police - they'd be doing nothing most of the time, if
not for running speed traps and harassing bored teenagers.

------
duxup
"Actions taken by the legislature in Louisiana and in other states have likely
compounded the issue. According to Census survey data, in states with the most
fine-reliant jurisdictions, localities incurred notably steeper state funding
cuts than elsewhere nationally over the decade. Many of those same states have
also enacted numerous revenue restrictions for cities over the years. In fact,
according to research from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, in
states that implemented caps or limits on local property taxes starting in the
late 1970s, fees and charges substantially increased as a share of all
revenues that local governments raised."

I think this speaks to the larger issue, a structural problem about how
revenues are gathered.

State legislators restrict or eliminate funding and cut off any other sources
of funding, so they gather funds the only way they can providing a perverse
incentive.

There's way too much focus on "cut taxes wherever" without much thought as to
good governance and the results of such cuts.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
It's not as though cities and towns are using fine dollars to educate children
and feed the homeless. They're not. They're using it to pay more police
salaries so they can write more tickets. They're simply using the money to
further their own existence. God forbid the towns be forced to find an
alternate way to pay for, reduce or cut a service in the face of shrinking
revenues.

~~~
duxup
I think the article adequately describes how difficult it is to "find an
alternative" particularly when the state legislature is cutting off those
paths.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Alternative for what purpose? These towns and counties already have basically
nil for services.

~~~
duxup
Presumably for whatever services the town might want to offer. Police, fire,
water, sewer, etc. I think we can all imagine what those things might be from
city to city.

Believe it or not small towns do offer some services, it might not be much
compared to others, but little is still something that needs to be funded.

I can understand a bit of the rural vs urban issues in the US when I see a lot
of arguments here that because they offer very little (perhaps just compared
to an outsider's point of view) ... that means they shouldn't have any?

Meanwhile as the article notes state legislatures cut off funding from the
state / limit their ability to gather funds by other means.

------
jessaustin
_Missouri lawmakers responded by lowering, to 20 percent, a cap on the
proportion of general operating revenues that could come from minor traffic
violations._

Previously the limit was 30% and before that it was 35%. That higher limit was
imposed to deal with Macks Creek, MO, a village on a US highway in a valley
between two steep hills. That village was coated in brake dust, until the
legislature decided it doesn't really need police. I'm pleased at the progress
we're making in this state.

~~~
ceejayoz
That was the town with one cop per 50 residents, wasn't it?

~~~
jessaustin
I'm not sure if they ever had four cops? They did have two patrol cars,
though, so it could have made sense. They didn't want anyone to sneak through
at 46 MPH.

------
donatj
I've always thought society would be better off if fines and money confiscated
by police was redistributed as tax relief rather than going to the government
or police department doing the confiscation.

As it stands it only encourages abuse.

~~~
SkyBelow
No one involved in levying the fine (or deciding what is fined or how large a
fine is) can benefit if you want to remove the conflict of interest. Perhaps
the best thing to do is stick it all in a fund for helping victims of crimes
when the criminal doesn't have enough funds to cover damages to the person
(but even that isn't great).

~~~
ryandrake
Shred the money that gets collected. This helps everyone by increasing the
value of the dollar by an extremely tiny amount.

------
non-entity
I grew up on the outer edge of the metro Atlanta area, and I remember a lot of
people joking about this small mill town and how they made all their money off
traffic tickets. Eventually, I'd here a ton of notes about these type of towns
everywhere I lived.

------
temp-dude-87844
The financialization of modern life puts extra pressure on areas without much
economic activity. Self-government enables local needs to be discussed and
addressed while serving as a job program for more than just the few elected
positions; it raises its own revenues but also generates new costs. Locally-
generated revenue has to supplement scant subsidies from the state.

Within this template, a fortunate jurisdiction can collect fines and fees from
out-of-towners without significantly making locals' lives miserable. An
unfortunate jurisdiction harasses locals too. This is not unlike how
corporations take advantage of laws, but with the added abuse potential of
being able to make up laws too.

The state stepping in and forcing a disincorporation of the local jurisdiction
isn't necessarily a good answer. It stops the immediate symptom of near-abuse
or actual abuse of power but doesn't provide a framework to substitute
economic activity. Far better is limiting the level to which local governments
have control over decisions of policing, but such measures are unpopular. The
status quo largely continues, with investigations opened into a few high-
profile cases of abuse of power, and the rest can keep doing what they do for
now.

------
AWildC182
This is especially annoying because for every dollar they collect, you can end
up paying your insurance company 4+ times as much because they now think
you're a terrible driver for getting these minor BS citations.

~~~
porpoisemonkey
If you get caught for speeding in Michigan, the Golden rule is to always
appeal the ticket. Unless you've been excessively reckless they'll typically
knock it down to "impeding traffic" which carries a slightly higher fine
(depending on your speed) but is not a moving violation and doesn't get
reported to insurance. [1]

> Impeding traffic is a civil infraction punishable by a fine. It is also
> considered a non-moving violation that does not add any points to the
> offender's Michigan driving record. Non-moving violations are not reported
> to the Michigan Secretary of State and are less likely to be detected by
> automobile insurance companies as a basis to raise rates. Municipal
> attorneys will frequently offer to reduce speeding tickets to an impeding
> traffic charge which avoids points on the driver's record but usually
> results in a bigger fine.

It's a pure money making scheme.

[1] [https://www.monroecountylawyers.com/blog/2018/12/what-is-
imp...](https://www.monroecountylawyers.com/blog/2018/12/what-is-impeding-
traffic-in-michigan.shtml)

~~~
mikeash
“Money making scheme” is putting it mildly. If they're offering to not tell
your insurance company in exchange for paying a larger fine, I would describe
that as “extortion.”

~~~
lotsofpulp
And especially favors the rich as they have the time and money to pay the
government upfront, while the poor get to deal with higher insurance premiums.

------
flyGuyOnTheSly
>Others prop up their budgets using traffic cameras, parking citations or code
enforcement violations.

I saw my town make over $1,200 within a split second the other night.

I was stopped waiting at a red light, as cars were passing in front of me.

The light turned yellow, then red, then not even what seemed like a nanosecond
after it might have turned red... 3 cars entered the intersection and the
light flashed 3 times.

$400, $800, $1,200... all within less than a second, for an infraction so
minor that even a police cruiser sitting in my exact same position would have
probably sloughed off as being "close enough".

Not to mention, these cameras probably cost orders of magnitude less than a
human police officer and a dedicated cruiser.

All I am getting at is, from a business standpoint, it's obvious why these are
so popular with poor municipalities.

Once again, the rich get richer, and the poor get kicked on their way home
from their 3rd job with a $400 fine for being a nanosecond later than an
ambiguously timed light decided they should have been.

This is not going to change unless federal legislation forces it to.

------
bogus_323423
Government is "sticky". War taxes stick around long after the end of the war,
and city bureaucracies stick around long after a city declines.

Nobody wants to accept that maybe a town of 5-20k people don't need 20-100 man
police forces, and a far lower level of public services in general.

Nobody wants to admit they have to lower their standards of living in the face
of adversity; instead we double-down on reproducing (or improving on) the
standard of living of our forebears and thereby immiserate ourselves with the
debts (or oppression in this case) needed to square that circle.

Even the most economically irrelevant areas of rural america have paved roads
these days when they could simply have stuck with gravel, etc. In many ways we
are trying to exceed the prior standard of living (progress!) all the while
forgetting that the economic base of most of these places has either not
improved or significantly worsened.

We all increase our standards of living at our own peril; one must save and
capitalize first (which is actively punished by low interest rate policy).
Taking this as a given, should we have expected any other outcome?

------
shados
I always felt like punitive fines and fees, tickets, etc, should be de facto
given out to a third party, unaffiliated charity. Got a ticket for not picking
up after your dog? Money goes to an animal protection group.

Of course, even WITH the economic incentive a lot of these things get little
to no attention/enforcement, so without it will be even less. Sigh. At least
ridiculously random road rules would go away?

~~~
siavosh
3rd party contributions may then incentivize the formation of special interest
charity lobbies pushing for more fines unfortunately.

~~~
shados
Heh, dealing with the intersection of money and people is hard.

Lets just use the death penalty for everything. Less money involved then.

Oh damn, the people making injection drugs will lobby too... I just can't win.

------
aluren
Fines should not exist. Anything that gets punished by a fine is basically
codeword for 'you can break that law if you're rich'. The most spectacular
example being Facebook's stock _rising_ after being fined for a few billions
because it was pocket money for them.

Alternatively, if you _really_ want to punish minor things, fines could be
dependent on your income.

------
jasonjei
If and when autonomous cars become a reality, I wonder what will small towns
do to find new punitive fines and fees...

------
jandrewrogers
This is unfortunately and notoriously true. It is how relatively impoverished
towns without a real tax base generate enough revenue to provide basic
services. These fines are usually selectively applied to people from outside
the area, so there is little adverse consequence for the townspeople. It works
this way throughout the rural US, though easily avoided if you diligently pay
attention to and comply with the signage when in those kinds of areas.

Insufficient local tax base for small towns is a problem throughout the world,
with many diverse solutions. This is the evolved and ad hoc US flavored
version in the absence of a top-down official solution.

------
jacobwilliamroy
Perhaps changing location in title from "the country" to "the U.S." would help
international readers; some of whom have told me they feel annoyed because
they need some acknowledgement that other countries exist.

------
peter_retief
Same here South Africa, it has been said that for many small towns their main
income is from speeding fines. Quite irritating if you go on a road trip and
come back to a couple of speeding fines in the post

------
olliej
A degree of this could be solved just by saying proceeds from fines, fees, and
forfeiture go to the state or federal government.

Obviously that might encourage those governments too do such fines, but a.
they already do that, and b. people have historically been better at limiting
large scale abuse like this that is possible in each separate small town
scattered around the state/country.

Also it might provide a more cost effective way to sue in response to
disparate enforcement (one suit vs many).

------
cprayingmantis
The town in East Tennessee is Bluff City and it’s notorious for its speed
traps, cameras, and lazy law enforcement. It was so bad someone who got a
ticket bought their domain when it expired
[https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/man-buys-police-dept-
websi...](https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/man-buys-police-dept-website-
speeding-ticket/story?id=10858731)

------
8bitsrule
Hah. The last traffic fine I paid was for a highway speed-limit sign (65 to
30mph) more than a mile from, and around a curve from, a Midwest whistle-stop
that a few hundred called home. A lot of these flat-plain potholes probably
survived only because their leaders had the connections to get the highway
routed through them.

( Akroid's 1991 film 'Nothing But Trouble' sums up my feelings.)

------
crossman
I'm genuinely surprised not to see any Rhode Island cities/towns on this.
Speed cameras have shown up like a plague in Providence in the past year and
are expected to spread throughout the state.

[https://www.wpri.com/news/providence-speed-cameras-were-a-
mo...](https://www.wpri.com/news/providence-speed-cameras-were-a-money-maker-
in-2018/)

~~~
dsfyu404ed
This article is talking about fines as a proportion of overall revenue. In the
Northeast they can fine the crap out of anything that moves and taxes revenues
are still high enough (because there's so much expensive property, high
incomes and other taxable stuff combined with decently high tax rates) that
the fines are still not a significant percent of revenue.

~~~
crossman
Valid, and I don't know what the total fines are, but if the speed cameras
alone netted 3.2 million last year it seems quite plausible that fines are
accounting for 10% or more if I'm reading this report correctly
[http://www.providenceri.gov/wp-
content/uploads/2019/01/Accou...](http://www.providenceri.gov/wp-
content/uploads/2019/01/Accountants-Report-and-Financial-Statements-City-of-
Providence-FINAL.pdf)

But you know, I'm not an accountant

------
balls187
Two places to _always_ drive the speedlimit:

* On US Military Bases

* Near small towns

------
ChrisArchitect
was a good article in NYT Magazine about this, almost the same kind of piece
"How Cities Make Money by Fining the Poor"
[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/08/magazine/cities-fine-
poor...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/08/magazine/cities-fine-poor-
jail.html)

------
Spoom
_immediately looks for Linndale, OH as a former Cleveland resident_

Yup, there it is. 96.2% of general funds from fines. $24,126 _per adult
resident_. That's what happens when you have a tiny town with a small segment
of an Interstate.

------
sizzzzlerz
When towns can't raise taxes to cover basic services or the revenue they do
have dries up as the population shrink, there aren't a lot of options left.
Transient taxes on hotel rooms or traffic fines are pretty much it.

------
vwcx
Another worrying aspect is that many small towns contract with third-party
companies to handle ticket processing, often tacking on extra surcharges
(above and beyond a cc processing fee) to pay via credit card online.

------
RickJWagner
All government relies on your money in some form or other.

Traffic fines just de-select those who don't travel by motor vehicle. And, to
some degree, the fees are self-selected. (You choose to speed or not.)

------
larrik
NY shouldn't be overlooked here. Driving from CT to Ohio, I'll see 5x as many
cops in the short part of the trip in NY than I will on the entire rest of the
trip.

------
0xdeadbeefbabe
This was a major plot point in Disney's Cars.

------
starpilot
Every time on the 395 between Bishop and Mammoth.

~~~
sizzzzlerz
That's CHP, not town cops or country sheriff except when driving through
Bishop or getting off 395 to drive into Mammoth.

------
denton-scratch
Aren't all fines 'punitive'? Isn't that the point?

------
JustSomeNobody
Waldo, Fl until the "Waldo Bill".

------
known
It deters Investors

------
kiliantics
And this funding is disproportionately paid for by the poor:

[https://gawker.com/ferguson-and-the-criminalization-of-
ameri...](https://gawker.com/ferguson-and-the-criminalization-of-american-
life-1692392051)

The use of bureaucracy to funnel wealth from poor to rich also operates in the
same way for private institutions such as banks. Graeber goes into this modern
tendency towards bureaucratic rule in detail in his book "Utopia of Rules"

~~~
kiliantics
I really don't understand what was so unpalatable to other users about this
comment... The link I shared goes into the same details about Ferguson as the
top comment and the notion that it is poorer people that bear the largest
burden is also stated in the featured article. Is it the idea that these same
issues also arise in the private sector that rubs people the wrong way?

