`Some of these communities have used their citizens as ATMs'

Police Agencies Fold in St. Louis Area as Ticket Blitzes Stop


(Bloomberg) The aftermath of racial turmoil in Ferguson, Missouri, is exacting a toll on St. Louis-area communities that built their finances around speeding tickets, thanks to a state law limiting the income they can draw from traffic fines.

The city council of Charlack last week decided the community of 1,400 can’t afford an eight-officer police force under the new law, which says traffic citations in St. Louis County municipalities can’t exceed 12.5 percent of annual operating revenue, down from 30 percent. Policing in Charlack and in nearby Wellston, which dissolved its 23-officer force in May, is now handled by a recently created cooperative of local departments.

The 2014 police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson forced a national re-examination of what critics call “taxation by citation,” a situation exacerbated by the sheer number of departments, 18,000 throughout the U.S. A bill is pending in Congress to restrict the amount of revenue local governments can collect from traffic citations. In St. Louis County, which has 90 municipalities and 59 individual police departments, more communities are expected to follow the lead of Charlack and Wellston.

“This will have lawmakers around the country taking a second look at their agencies and making certain that the sole purpose of their existence is not for revenue, but to serve the public interest,” said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington nonprofit. “Police departments should not exist if their sole purpose is to generate revenue. That’s what we have tax collectors for.” ...................(more)

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-10-22/police-agencies-fold-in-st-louis-area-as-ticket-blitzes-stop