Even the Little Things Matter

When most people think of police misconduct, they have an image of an innocent man killed by an officer on the streets. Given recent events (Ferguson) and the media’s insatiable appetite for these stories, its difficult to not think in this way. Most of us do not encounter the police in such a way though.

Many of us will only ever encounter an officer during a traffic stop; 44% of our police encounters are during traffic stops. This in itself is not a bad thing (better to have an America of speeders than of murders). The shear number of people that this represents though is outstanding. In its most recent report, The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration indicated that this represents:

  • 41 Billion People being ticketed a year (or 20.6% of drivers)
  • $6.2 Billion in ticket income per year
  • $300,000 in ticket income per officer

That 44% just got a lot bigger didn’t it?

To put it plainly, the police collect a shit ton of money from ticket tickets……so where does all this money go? Well, it generally goes to a few places:

  1. General Funds for the State, Municipality or County
  2. Funding for EMS Services
  3. Police Operating Cost

So officers have incentive to give tickets to either fund their department or their township. While some State’s have legislation that caps traffic revenue, some townships will make more than 80% of their income from traffic tickets. Of course this pressure to bring in revenue can cause issue.

Not every traffic stop is handled justly. We have talked about issues of racism, excessive force, and overall misconduct/misuse of power in street policing, and these same issues exist in traffic policing. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics:

  • Black drivers are more likely to be pulled over
  • White drivers are less likely to be ticketed than black and Hispanic drivers
  • 1% of drivers (several billion people) who are pulled over have physical force used against them
  • About half of these people (above) do not believe the force was warranted

These numbers are indicative of issues with the police on a national scale, and are echoed in the places where tensions have reached their peak. In Ferguson, the unofficial center of America’s troubles with the police, 85% of traffic stops and 90% of tickets are from black residents. These numbers are so stark that the Justice Department concluded “The Ferguson Police Department was routinely violating the constitutional rights of its black residents.”

So whats the point of talking about traffic stops? When you have all these dramatic events (killings, beatings, framing, ect, ect) why bother talking about traffic tickets? Why talk about such a mundane part of policing?

Well the fact that traffic stops are such a mundane part of policing is what makes them important.

We all know that most police officers will never wrongly kill or beat a man during his career; this is why we make such a big deal every time it happens. Almost all police officer will be involved in a traffic stop at some point though. If you look at the thing that the majority of police officer do the majority of the time, and in that you can see the most widespread issues.

If traffic stops are a good indicator of general police behavior, then we can potentially say that we have a problems with racism and excessive use of force in the police. We have a problem with police being incentivized to deal out punishment to civilians. We may have a lot of problems with how our justice system is structured and we generally treat people who break the law.

If we have so many issues with the smallest, simplest piece of our justice system, then how hopeful can we be for the rest of it?

The point I am trying to make is that our issue with policing is not simple; it is complicated and it manifest itself in many different ways. To say that we just need to do “this” or “that” or whatever and our problems will be solved is a bit naive.

Reform takes time. It takes a lot of time.

Reform take effort. It takes a lot of effort.

To reform a system from the bottom up takes a lot of effort.

Things will not change simply because somebody says that they need to…

 

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3 Responses to Even the Little Things Matter

  1. tdb5301 says:

    It’s a just conclusion to say that if we find problems in the most routine of policing processes, then perhaps that is the strongest evidence for the necessity of reform measures. In a time when we stress timeliness, an issue and stigma so deeply ingrained cannot be healed by quick action, but rather a broad, long-term effort.

  2. Abigail Louise Cosgrove says:

    I like how you were able to take the public’s perception of police brutality and talk about other aspects of the issue at hand. As Sam mentioned, it really does come down to the culture of racism and police’s abuse of power. Right now with the current, Baltimore riots, it does not seem like we are making any progress with the ongoing problem of police brutality. There is a difference between peaceful protests and riots, the latter has proven to be much less successful throughout history.

  3. svb5614 says:

    I think it’s really cool how you were able to take what has always appeared as a small issue, and use it to paint a picture of the larger issue of police brutality. Time and time again, it comes down to that culture of racism and abuse of power. The point that you make at the end is really important. We can’t possibly stop the issue of police brutality without starting at the bottom. And right now, it doesn’t seem like we’re going to make any progress there, either.

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