Ferguson Missouri How does this even work?

NOHOME wrote: So, I did a quick check on line today and came across this: Around 21,000 people live in Ferguson. But in 2013, the city’s municipal court issued a staggering 32,975 arrest warrants for minor offenses, according to Missouri state records. And when people couldn’t pay, they were arrested. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/03/05/ferguson-shows-how-a-police-force-can-turn-into-a-plundering-collection-agency/ So, like how can that work? I guess the good news is that such things are limited to this one small town and not likely to spread to the rest of the country.

What I cant wrap my head around is the population of 21,000 and 32,000 arrest warrants outstanding? How can you have more warrants than population? And who the hell does NOT have a warrant out for them?

NOHOME wrote: So, I happend to see the Jimmy Kimmel show with Obama as a guest. Obama was going on about some unusual policing that went on in Ferguson. The gist was that there was some abuse of the system. So, I did a quick check on line today and came across this: Around 21,000 people live in Ferguson. But in 2013, the city’s municipal court issued a staggering 32,975 arrest warrants for minor offenses, according to Missouri state records. And when people couldn’t pay, they were arrested. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/03/05/ferguson-shows-how-a-police-force-can-turn-into-a-plundering-collection-agency/ So, like how can that work? I guess the good news is that such things are limited to this one small town and not likely to spread to the rest of the country.

The entire municipal criminal justice system is confronting some of these issues right now. People, mostly poor and with many citations or warrants, are complaining over aggressive policing and excessive fines. Generally, it is not possible to convert a crime for which the sentence is a fine to a period in jail, although some offenses offer both as a remedy. The fine is intended, yes, as a revenue generator with the given that some people, but certainly not everyone, will speed/otherwise violate, but also as a deterrent to the violation. People who are already poor end up either owing lots of money to the cities or having warrants issued, usually for failing to appear for court appearances that were set to review the payments they have made toward paying all fines and court costs.

The problem is, many of the solutions to these problems involve lessening the deterrent effect of the ordinance to the point that there is not much point in it anymore, or limiting the percentage of revenue a town can rely on from tickets to pay general operating expenses, thereby lessening the incentive for municipal police to monitor traffic, although as a practical matter I'm not sure this would diminish.

Missouri has legislation pending that would accomplish both of these things, but frankly is more damaging than good in my opinion.

I don't necessarily have a better model, but I also don't necessarily see the status quo as tragic or unjust either. There are a lot of people driving around without valid licenses, for one thing, not to mention carrying ordinance level dope or whatever, and local police tend to know who many of them are. Some folks just become notorious misdemeanor offenders. I guess they can either stop offending or move.

I've also heard the argument, which I consider related, that police should make different judgment calls regarding what they ticket or investigate, for example Eric Garner was "just" selling cigarettes that were not properly taxed, or someone had a knife that may or may not have been legal, etc... These are really case by case situations, where the merits of every stop should be examined to determine whether it was lawful or not as opposed to expecting police to act like the cool uncle who lets more slide than your folks really because he doesn't have to live with the consequences, but in my opinion, and some research would tend to back me, is that in fact when law enforcement does take note of "smaller" or "victimless" crimes, it improves the welfare of the entire community, kind of a "broken window" theory of crime and law enforcement. Its also not what we actually want police to do in our society. We don't want law enforcement acting like the legislature and the judge. The legislature says something is a crime, that's really it, it doesn't say, this shall be a crime if it is on a slow day and the offender is ugly or the police are bored. There are areas where police should not be using discretion, like whether or not a warrant for child support is as enforceable or should be enforced as much as one for stealing. Anyway, just my $0.02. I probably really have at least $0.75 more but will spare everyone.

In reply to Datsun1500: I would bet that speeding tickets are only a piece of the 32000 warrants in Ferguson. There are a lot of tickets you could write a people without a car if you needed to make buck. Littering, leaving you trash cans out too long, putting them out too early. I grew up near a town like this where ticket writing was done like an Olympic sport. I watched a classmate get an excessive noise ticket wearing headphones on a bicycle.

In reply to Datsun1500:

Yep . . . It was just an example.

Would be better if I changed it to a more minor offense . . . . How does 56 mph in a 55 work? That's minor (the report noted arrest warrants for minor offenses) as most LEOs don't every register than on te radar . . . If we go by your scenario, I think all of us would have an arrest warrant for it . . . Does 1mph over mean we need to be arrested? It is against the law to speed and all . . .

Some people tend to make out like "just be squeaky clean and the LEO won't berkeley with you" and everything will be ok. Unfortunately, that fairytale isn't as real as you believe . . .

EDIT: Wally added some good minor offenses

The problem seems to start once a municipality begins writing tickets for revenue instead of justice.

The second part of the issue comes from trying to get blood from a turnip. If people are poor they don't have money to pay fines incurred either through bad behavior or police targeting. They are then imprisoned. Debtors prisons were outlawed in America very early because of this.

The police state targets poor people. You don't see rich people getting targeted by these thugs with guns. Rich people hire lawyers to deal with them when they get a ticket for 26 in a 25. Poor people can't afford that and don't know how the game is played. That's just how it works. Now, poor people are sometimes poor because they make bad life decisions. Those bad life decisions often put them in conflict with the police state, so there's that aspect going on as well. It really comes down to the police are they to keep the poor people in line, and they do that with techniques that we are seeing in Ferguson, NY, Baltimore, Los Angeles, etc. Teh Intr4w3bz, y0, has just brought these things into view for us middle class people.

Dr. Hess wrote: The police state targets poor people. You don't see rich people getting targeted by these thugs with guns. Rich people hire lawyers to deal with them when they get a ticket for 26 in a 25. Poor people can't afford that and don't know how the game is played. That's just how it works. Now, poor people are sometimes poor because they make bad life decisions. Those bad life decisions often put them in conflict with the police state, so there's that aspect going on as well. It really comes down to the police are they to keep the poor people in line, and they do that with techniques that we are seeing in Ferguson, NY, Baltimore, Los Angeles, etc. Teh Intr4w3bz, y0, has just brought these things into view for us middle class people.

If rich people have to hire lawyers to deal with the police, I'd say they are in fact targeted by the police as well and not skipped over or they wouldn't need lawyers at all, its simply that the rich can afford the consequences and the poor can't. These consequences are on the back end in the judicial system as well, not in the middle of police stop , and the officer writing a ticket doesn't determine the disposition. What do you do about a poor person who is a particularly poor driver? "Suspend the license" say the people! What do you do if they keep driving on a suspended license? Or without insurance? What is an appropriate remedy?

Does a discussion about an appropriate remedy to a legitimate social/legal problem liken the US to a police state?

Datsun 1500 said: There's an easy way to not have that happen, don't speed. The example above starts with "got busted for speeding" If not for the act of speeding, nothing else on that list would happen, so it begins with someone making a choice. Choices have consequences.

Hey Datsun! Sheriff Rosco P Coltrane just clocked you doing 56.75 mph in a 55 zone. That will be a $45 fine, plus another $98 in related fees.

Datsun1500 wrote: ...There's an easy way to not have that happen, don't speed. The example above starts with "got busted for speeding" If not for the act of speeding, nothing else on that list would happen...

This of course is ignoring the reality that pretty much everyone, everyday, violates SOME law. Some may not but most do. I am sure there is a huge list of laws that are easy to violate, either by no knowing about them, or are commonly stretched / ignored (do you come to a complete stop for 2 seconds at a stop sign every time?), and they don't have to be traffic laws (e.g. copyright, trespassing etc.)

Many laws of course are pretty general and lose their intent when strictly enforced. Speeding laws are their for safety but giving someone a ticket for 28 in a 25 on an empty road with no people or housed around is silly. Selective enforcement is the issue, and it can be really bad if a cop / judge / city want it to be.

It's not just the lawyering up, Matt, it is a lot more complicated than that, but the lawyering up is an example. Poor people are targeted by the popo for minor infractions more than rich are. Sometimes that is for good reason. They make poor choices, as I said. But if there are 2 cars going 26 in a 25, and one is an old beater driven by a poor person (of any color) and the other is a brand new LS4xx driven by a well dressed blue-hair, which one do you think is going to get stopped and why? In my town, they tag-team the traffic stops. I see them all the time. Two now Tahoes with a beater pulled over and some poor person sitting on the curb with their hands on their head while the popo go through all their stuff. It's never a blue hair in a new caddy. Usually a kid, sometimes a car load of kids, and they always look like they don't have more to their name than the beater. Of course, which one do you think will have demon-weed in it? Big money for that. The news reports always state "stopped for speeding" or "stopped for a tail light out" or some BS like that and arrested for pot or other drugs. I've had them stop me too when I was driving the Rolla, which fit the "beater" profile. 1988 AE92 rolla with dents and a rather loud exhaust. As soon as he pulled me over and saw that I was well dressed (coming home from work) and wasn't a kid, he let me go with a verbal warning of "use your turn signal next time." I still don't know where he was hiding, I pay attention to those things and a Tahoe isn't exactly small.

Never mind the charges that are just outright lies.

<--- Started losing my faith in the justice system when a cop lied thru his teeth in court to make some traffic tickets stick. I knew he was lying. He knew he was lying. Hell - I'm pretty sure the judge knew he was lying. But innocent people don't feed their paycheck.

Way I see it, when the Government crosses the line from symbiotic to parasitic, you are FUBAR. These guys are WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY over that line.

Ferguson has a society that requires crime to sustain itself so that it can fight crime. Now that is funny no matter who you are.

In reply to Datsun1500:

If you got a stopped for 56 in a 55, they searched your car, gave you a ticket, and sent you on your way then yeah I could see you being fine with it.

But if you got that ticket, learned all your neighbors got the same kind of ticket in the last few months, and you got a couple more similar tickets - would that still be OK? What if you were pulled over and ticketed 10 times in a calendar year? 50? One man was frisked more than 250 times, and arrested more than 60 times in Miami Gardens for trespassing, at his place of employment.

That's exactly what's happening in some of these communities, and it stems from the "broken windows" philosophy of law enforcement.

Datsun1500 wrote: ...Does the cop know that it is a poor person speeding and pull them over instead of the rich guy in the next lane? That's not likely, they pull over the guy speeding...

In many cases it is pretty damn easy to tell. If they favor the poor guy then maybe they are just playing the odds, they are more likely to have other more serious offences. How is this an issue? What if you are a poor guy that follows the law as best you can afford (e.g. can't afford a tail light lens, so you tape it until you can). "Just not be poor" is not a very good response to this BTW (it's a bit hard to avoid for some)

...The argument of "the punishment hurts the poor more" is a foolish one, as it's really easy to not get punished by not breaking the law, no matter what your income...

But, the fact still remains, when there is punishment (which happens a lot), poor people are clearly punished more by monetary fines. It's simple math. They should be aware of that and be more careful, but they are also generally easier targets (e.g. more likely to have cars with minor issues), which makes it harder for the non-poor to "just not break the law".

...What business plan says Let's make money by going after the people that can't pay? Does that even make sense?..

Well, clearly is does work, it seems to be the reason they are doing it. It's also seems that at least some of them pay, so they are making money. If nothing else, pulling over a bunch of non-poor for dubious reasons is much more likely to create backlash (e.g. people who know people, people in power etc.)

If you took the perspective that these dubious stops and charges are simply an excuse to look for more serious charges (e.g. pot) then you might have a point. But the fact still remains, if you are a non-poor guy with pot in your car, you are less likely to get caught with it.

Datsun1500 wrote:

Wally wrote: In reply to Datsun1500: I would bet that speeding tickets are only a piece of the 32000 warrants in Ferguson. There are a lot of tickets you could write a people without a car if you needed to make buck. Littering, leaving you trash cans out too long, putting them out too early. I grew up near a town like this where ticket writing was done like an Olympic sport. I watched a classmate get an excessive noise ticket wearing headphones on a bicycle.

If you needed to make a buck, why write tickets to people that can't pay them? That's the part of this discussion that I don't get. How did they make any money from the 32,000 warrants?

because they literally put people in jail and hold them for ransom until somebody pays. okay, legally speaking it's not a ransom, but effectively it is.

Have you ever tried to fight a bogus ticket? I once got a parking ticket in the city of Philadelphia while I was legally parked, unsuccessfully fighting it cost me almost $300 when it was all said and done. That hurt, & I can afford to pay it, Joe Hood Rat can't, in Ferguson he would wind up in jail over it. His family will use money that should be going to other things to bail him out.

Datsun do you live in a gated country club community? You need to get out more.

In reply to Datsun1500:

One if the first things I learn working for the govt, "In chaos there's profit."

If you go ahead and pay the fine, nice we put a few bucks in the till. If you go to court the p.o. makes overtime, the judge and court people get work. If the get locked up there is more Ot for transport, the jailers ect.

This part is pure speculation from things I've seen in other jobs but if I had to guess there is some state and federal money that will flow into the town for paying all the bills the town can't cover, hire more cops, judges, ect to handle the crime epidemic, send some shiny new cars and equipment to make rounding up the "fugitives" easier.

In reply to Datsun1500:

BTW, did you see my earlier post about the not really a school zone, school zone speed trap, or the 25 where legally it should be a 35 speed trap? Those are real things, I can take you to them and show them to you. We can go to the courthouse on the next day they have traffic court. You will see dozens if not hundreds of people there to fight or plead down a ticket. I bet twice as many people just pay it. no ticket around here is less than $100 by the time they get done tacking on fees.

John Oliver did a bit on Last Week Tonight about Municipal Violations: https://youtu.be/0UjpmT5noto

I found it quite informative. That's where this comes into play. His story on Civil Asset Forfeiture is also a doozy.

We keep going back to speeding because its what we are familiar with but how many of these people even drive. Sitting on your front stoop drinking a beer? Here's an open container ticket. Carrying a lighter and no smokes? Drug paraphernalia. You do have smokes? Those a blunts. You were going to smoke pot with them, still drug paraphernalia. Come with us please.

I've been a white conservative republican most of my life but I've worked in enough E36 M3ty areas to know this stuff goes on.

Good night everyone

Wally hit the nail on the head . . . some LEOs just berkeley with people for whatever reason they can make up.

Here's a good one . . . threats of being arrested for disorderly conduct at Frankie's Fun Park. Some off duty LEO threatened us with his badge because we were "making too much noise" at a fun park . How the hell does that happen?

His supervisor received a visit from me and Park's mgr the next day on that one.

Datsun1500 wrote: What business plan says Let's make money by going after the people that can't pay? Does that even make sense?

Actually, now that the jails have been privatized, and even for those that are not, it makes a lot of sense. You NEED people in those jails to create the jobs and the profits for the investors. People in jail don't need money,so you might as well bleed the turnip for every cent it has before you toss them in jail. And it is a foolproof business plan because the taxpayer covers the cost to incarcerate.

"Bad guys" off the street Win#1. Good solid jobs created in the incarceration industry Win#2. Paid for by Taxpayer Win#3. On the surface it makes the egomaniac running the city look good Win#4.

I don't for a second believe that the individual government officials who officiate over all this have any sense of wrongdoing any more than the guards at the death camps in Germany did when they marched people off to the showers; just doing their job dealing with people on the wrong side of "the law". It is funny how that works.

In reply to NOHOME:

Most aren't privatized......but the prison I worked at was the only one in Indiana. Sure, they got paid by the convict, but it was cheaper for the state to pay us to house them than paying to keep them at a state DOC location. Private prisons only exist due to being able to do a job better than the govt.

There's a lot of complaining that 'the police don't do enough to clean up crime infested areas' then when they do (that's where the 'busted window' theory comes in) the complaints become they are being too hard on the people. So which is right? If a populace is going to demand the police clean up their neighborhood, they are going to have to accept that there's going to be people going to jail and that those who can't be bothered to keep their property in decent shape are going to get some less than pleasant visits. 'Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it'.

I happen to have first hand experience with this. My dad owned a low income apartment complex; back in the 80's when crack first came on the scene it degenerated into something approaching a war zone. There were a lot of decent residents of the complex; they wanted my dad to fix it. He wasn't law enforcement, the job had to be turned over to the state and local PD's. Don't start yelling; believe me a landlord has fewer rights than the tenants and cannot be expected to legally evict someone over the 'suspicion' of illegal activity. You better have proof, such as being busted by the police. I have never seen any one fill out the rental application and list 'dope dealer' as their occupation. They've been known to have others rent apartments etc for them, that person will say the dope dealer is a houseguest. There ain't a damn thing a landlord can do with that.

He donated a building for use as a police substation, the next thing you know there's all kinds of complaints that the cops are writing tickets for various infractions. Non operational cars are being towed. There's a curfew. Neighborhood kids are being questioned. Well, duh. What did you expect, a magic wand to be waved? In the long run it worked; after the dope dealers got tired of being busted, their 10 y/o runners getting stopped and their dope confiscated, they couldn't shoot out the street lights with impunity any more etc they moved on. The neighborhood cleaned up (it took enforcing littering laws to get that done, oh the yelling and screaming) and the end result was a low income complex where people could live safely. Which is what the tenants wanted in the first place.

I'm not excusing the PDs that have set themselves up as revenue collectors. That crap needs to be toned way down.

I liken this to the comment from the police in New York during the recent slow down there. Not exact but it was something along the lines of, from now on we are only responding to calls where people are in danger or damaging others. We will not be responding to inconveniences and things that lead strictly to the profit of the city.

I would saw that is how most police forces should be run. That shouldn't be a threat to the city, it should be the oath the LEOs take.