When police become revenue agents to keep towns fiscally solvent

cash-strapped-cityThe community policing model becomes completely distorted when policeman – the civil servants you’re most likely to see and interact with in the course of a normal day – are turned into revenue producing instruments by the cities they work for. When a police officer’s job depends on whether s/he can generate enough revenue to keep his employer out of bankruptcy, a lot of people are going to be unhappy. And some of those unhappy people are going to be people grievously harmed, or excessively fined, for behaviour that shouldn’t be a big deal. read more