snip > Ferguson’s economy steadily withered over the last decade, as did its population. Yet even as the number of adult residents fell 11% between 2010 and 2013, fines collected by the city’s court system surged 85%, hitting $2.6 million last year.

snip> Of course, it may be that residents are simply breaking laws more frequently. But the share of arrests for petty offenses suggests something else at play.

In fact, arresting people for minor violations is exactly the point, as Brendan Roediger, professor at the Saint Louis University School of Law and supervisor of a local civil advocacy clinic, told Governing magazine. “They don’t want to actually incarcerate people because it costs money, so they fine them,” Roediger said, adding that Ferguson’s court sometimes hears as many as 300 cases per hour.

snip>Though blacks make up only two-thirds of Ferguson’s population, nearly nine-tenths of vehicle stops in Ferguson involve black drivers. Those drivers are almost twice as likely as white drivers to be searched and twice as likely to be arrested. That’s despite the fact that searches of black drivers result in discovery of contraband 22% of the time, while white drivers searched by police are found to have contraband 34% of the time.

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