A series currently running in the New York Times entitled “Pulled Over,” reminds me of a completely innocent incident related to me by a friend.
True story: he and his buddy were biology majors in their senior year of college. They decided to take a road trip down to Florida to check out a graduate school. My friend was the passenger.
They were “crawling” through a town in the southeast at about 25 m.p.h. when they were pulled over by a trooper. They were following the traffic signs. Nevertheless, the trooper gave them an ultimatum: a $100 fine or jail time. Their “crime” was going 27 m.p.h. and having an out-of-state license plate.
They followed the police cruiser to the town’s courthouse. Before stepping before the town clerk, they were shown a jail cell. It was Mayberry all over. They paid the fine – in cash, and they were wished a “nice day.” It was innocuous in the overall scheme of things but it underscores the world of traffic stops as revenue streams and over-stepped boundaries. But that’s just the start.
Pulled Over
In his investigation, writer Michael Levenson and a team of researchers analyzed how seemingly routine traffic stops led to fatal outcomes.
The NYT investigation found that:
- The police shot and killed more than 400 drivers or passengers in traffic stops where the drivers or passengers had no weapon nor were being pursued for a violent crime.
- As with my friend, the traffic stops are most often motivated by “budgetary considerations.” In general, traffic stops are where police and the public interact the most, “yet the police consider them among the most dangerous things they do.
- In training, “the presumption of peril has been overstated,” meaning that police officers are already primed when approaching a vehicle that they have stopped.
Is It Worth It?
For the most part, the reasons many motorists are pulled over involve broken tail-lights, expired registrations and shoplifting. The killings have mainly occurred where there is an escalation and the driver and/or passengers attempt to flee.
“While prosecutors deemed most of the killings justifiable, local governments paid at least $125 million to resolve legal claims in about 40 cases.”
Of the 400 or more deaths in the past five years, police officers have been convicted but five times. In several instances there has been an undeniable racial component. The traffic stop has resulted in terrible tragedy, there is no getting around it. This is a complex issue and certainly an ethical study in power, greed, bias and opportunity.
For this post, I want to talk a bit about financial incentives. Said Levenson:
“Many communities rely heavily on ticket revenue to fund their budgets, effectively turning their officers into revenue agents searching for violations, even minor ones, to support municipal needs — including their own pay raises.”
In addition, it has been estimated that the federal government incentivizes traffic stops to the tune of $600 million in “safety grants.” These grants calculate traffic stops per hour and allegedly leads to over policing. There are currently 20 states being awarded grant money for traffic stops.
So, is it worth it to stop a vehicle for, let’s say, a broken tail light or an expired registration? Does it make sense to escalate what is, at best, a minor infraction? Or, could the technology shift to allow for a nonviolent approach? For example, if I can see an expired registration tag from the passenger seat of a police cruiser, why can’t a picture be taken of the plate and a ticket for a fine be sent by mail? It seems to work for photo-radar in many states.
Given facial recognition technology, and the fact that many stores have cameras, couldn’t that technology be applied to shoplifters rather than a car chase resulting in a death?
Finally, why have municipalities been enabled to essentially run “ticket-mills” that provide them with a revenue stream for rather minor infractions?
These are not so much legal, rather than they are ethical considerations. Ultimately, is a life worth a $150 ticket and a court appearance? I think not. It is time to shift our thinking to what is important rather than the outdated model of penalizing for the sake of meeting a quota.
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