
Police that collect more in fees and fines are less effective at solving crime - part997
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/09/24/want-your-police-department-to-collect-more-fines-it-will-solve-fewer-crimes/
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kgwxd
It makes no sense that money police collects goes directly towards funding any
government department. It should go into a tax refund pool.

~~~
merpnderp
I was trying to think of a place to stick the money that wouldn't incentivize
over-policing and couldn't think of one. But your option is perfect. There's
obviously no incentive for government employees to return money to tax payers,
so if anything, this would incentivize under-enforcement of fines and fees.

~~~
Gibbon1
I thought long and hard about that one and decided that fines should be
remitted to the social security administration and booked against the perps
account as a contribution.

As far as I can tell this is extremely easy to implement. And utterly removes
any mal-incentives.

~~~
maym86
It means the fine could have less of a deterrant effect on anyone who can
afford it as they can frame it as money they'll get back in the long run. Why
not speed if your ticket counts towards your retirement.

Having a inbuilt social good for breaking the law might make people more
willing to do so as they can justify their illegal action as a contribution to
public good.

~~~
Gibbon1
You already have the problem that small fines aren't much of a deterrent
effect on wealthy people. Though one might be surprised how butthurt well to
do people can be over trivial amounts of money.

A mitigating thing is monthly SS insurance benefits max out.

~~~
maym86
Speed until you max out your social security benefit is a crazy incentive.

~~~
Gibbon1
You can also max out the points on your license and your insurance companies
patience.

~~~
maym86
That happens either way, the discussion is about having an effective fine to
discourage people and crediting the person's social security account clearly
doesn't do that.

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ransom1538
Our local police department (Oviedo florida) takes a police car 200 ft from
the station and sits it by a 25mph zone that feeds into a 50 mph zone [1]. Now
that my wife and I have _both_ been ticketed (30mph) we go the speed limit --
what is even more weird --- going 25mph near a freeway is really dangerous as
cars honk and freak out behind you swerving to get around you.

[https://www.google.com/maps/place/28%C2%B038'57.5%22N+81%C2%...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/28%C2%B038'57.5%22N+81%C2%B012'19.7%22W/@28.6493175,-81.2060261,19z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d28.6493163!4d-81.2054789)

~~~
chrisseaton
Everyone's got an excuse for why they were in the right when they got a
speeding ticket.

And you now admit you drive according to the speed limit having been ticketed?
So it seems like what the police force are doing is effective.

~~~
itchyouch
Most people dont get ticketed until they are around 15 over.

Thats the “unspoken” general expectation. Even some fine schedules, have 1-10
over as a $0 fine. See pennsylvania:

[https://www.penndot.gov/TravelInPA/Safety/TrafficSafetyAndDr...](https://www.penndot.gov/TravelInPA/Safety/TrafficSafetyAndDriverTopics/Documents/TIPP-
Fine-Card-JAN-2014-v5.pdf)

However, some draconian towns like Collegedale, TN which advertise no crime
statistic in 20-30 years feed off the college kids and give them 5mph over
tickets all day long.

Its not necessarily about changing behavior, but there is a balance to be
striken between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law.

~~~
chrisseaton
5mph over can be the difference between life and death in a crash with a
pedestrian. I don’t understand why people trivialise it or act like it’s
draconian to expect people to drive under a speed limit.

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dsfyu404ed
>If Middletown’s police department collected only about 1 percent of its
revenue from fees and fines, our model predicts it would solve 53 percent of
its violent crimes and 32 percent of its property crimes. But if Middletown’s
police department instead collected 3 percent of its revenue from fees and
fines, our model predicts that clearance rates would fall to 41 percent for
violent crimes and 16 percent for property crimes. That’s a stark drop of 12
and 16 percentage points, respectively.

I want to see this broken down in terms of business days between crime and
someone being charged.

I have a suspicion that the correlation is being diluted by all the open and
shut "guy A punches guy B and gets charged with assault and battery because
everyone in the bar saw him do it" cases that don't require any investigating
(other than possibly collecting statements) types of violent crime that will
get "solved" regardless of how much time the police spend collecting fines.

~~~
snarf21
I think this misses the point. Issues like this are multi-faceted. Would
people rather pay higher taxes or have the police get the money from speeders
and parking violators? People who live in cities must have parking rules or
you are walking 4 blocks from your car to house each night.

My brother-in-law is a state police. When he was on patrol, they would get
lots of calls because someone mowed across someone else's property line. Or
someone stole someone else's pet rabbit. Once a mom called in and claimed that
her teenage son was assaulting her. When they arrived, it turned out he just
wasn't listening to her and doing chores and homework so she wanted to 'scare
him straight' and have the police tell him he had to. Other ones are because
some 15 year old texted nudes or posted on Instagram that they were going to
'kill' a teacher that gave them a bad grade.

He is now a detective and it is like you say above. The easy ones get solved
right away after some minor investigation but there are no resources to spend
weeks investigating murders with no witnesses or likely suspects.

In the end, part of it comes down to what do you want the police function to
be.

~~~
mgkimsal
> Once a mom called in and claimed that her teenage son was assaulting her.
> When they arrived, it turned out he just wasn't listening to her and doing
> chores and homework so she wanted to 'scare him straight' and have the
> police tell him he had to

Wow.... I would like to see that parent charged with wasting police time.

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prepend
I wasn’t able to find any controls for the possibility of high percent fee-
funded police department having lower ability to invest in quality workforce
and training.

I see the correlation, but not the causal link. Is high fee a symptom of lower
effectiveness rather than high fees causing lower effectiveness? Or they have
no causal link at all?

This seems pretty important, anybody else get this from the paper?

I’m interested in having this research concluded because my gut agrees with
the sentiment that incentivizing police to collect fees will reduce impact on
non-fee crimes. But my head won’t let me act without reliable evidence.

~~~
stevew20
Instead of pushing for a data driven conclusion, what about this:

A police officer has 1.0 amount of time in a shift. If he spends 0.2 of his
shift sitting at a speed trap trying to meet some quota, he has 0.8 of his
shift left to patrol / help solve crimes; however, the reciprocal of this
ratio could occur to, depending on which duties he is assigned.

Now step back... The entire police force has 1.0 amount of time per officer
per shift. In order to meet budget goals, they allocate 0.8 of that time to
speed traps. Now 0.2 of man hours are spent actually doing anything useful
(hint: solving crimes do not pay the bills... ).

We can examine data to confirm this, however I don't see the need. When you
have a time budget, every activity takes a portion of that time. If you spend
90% of your time playing solitaire at work, you aren't going to be very
productive. The relationship is absolute, so the data should support it. If
not, there is some noise interfering.

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prepend
Logically it makes sense, but would there be no officer at all without the .8
spent on speed traps? So is it bad governing that underfunds police so it must
spent .8 on ticketing? Or is it the spending .8 of time on ticketing that
causes less effective police?

As a programmer, I don’t agree with the absolute that someone who spends 90%
of their day playing solitaire will be less productive than another spending
0% of their day.

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jonathankoren
One of the reason why fine collection and civil forfeiture is prioritized is
because of the underfunding of police and other basic services.[0] Politicians
encourage this because they cut taxes too much, and this is a way to
essentially impose a tax, but not call it a tax.

The police know the game, and so you end up with these bizarre situations like
when the NYPD union announced they they were going to stick it to DeBlasio by
making arrests “only when necessary.”[1] (Which of course is an implicit
admission that arrests were being made that weren’t necessary.) The real
target was the NYC budget, because the NYPD brings in half a billion dollars a
year. (Over 10 million a week) That’s insane. Ironically, even though the
police stopped citing people, crime remained low and steady.

[0] [https://www.rand.org/blog/2015/03/to-serve-and-
collect.html](https://www.rand.org/blog/2015/03/to-serve-and-collect.html)

[1] [https://www.vox.com/2015/1/6/7501953/nypd-mayor-arrests-
unio...](https://www.vox.com/2015/1/6/7501953/nypd-mayor-arrests-union)

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upofadown
Driving is the most dangerous thing most people do. So if the need to collect
fines causes more traffic enforcement the result could be more total lives
saved and injuries prevented.

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visarga
No understand the title. The article is blocked (at least in Europe).

~~~
macintux
The grammar must have been butchered when creating an HN-friendly title.

The current WaPo headline: "What happens to police departments that collect
more fines? They solve fewer crimes."

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crankylinuxuser
Serious question then:

So if a police department didn't profit from any of the spoils of (alleged)
crime, they would be an ideal force?

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En_gr_Student
It is obvious in retrospect: if they major on quota-day, they minor on
felonies.

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Theodores
Another reason why the U.S.A. should have stayed on with the British Crown. In
the UK revenue from speeding tickets goes to the Queen's Consolidated Fund:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_Fund](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_Fund)

Police officers in the UK don't get to enrich their departments or their local
towns by fining more people. For that we have parking and 'yellow box
junctions' where councils can make lots of money by fining motorists. It is
just a tax on motorists, not really 'crime' what goes on with this.

