Give any friend a story
As a subscriber, you have 10 gifts to send every month. Anyone can read what you share.
The editorial board is composed of a group of opinion journalists whose opinions are drawn from professional knowledge, research, debate, and certain long-term values. It is separate from the newsroom.
Some police departments across the country have accepted the corrupt and unfair practices of urging the police to issue as many traffic tickets as possible to increase revenue for their municipalities.
For-profit police encourage unfair law enforcement. This also increases the likelihood that drivers will stop due to violations that are not related to public safety, and they will be killed or injured when they encounter police officers who are trained to regard traffic parking as a deadly dangerous moment.
This situation urgently requires the department to change the training methods of officials. Ultimately, these agencies need to stop the practice of exposing far more people than necessary to the law in this situation, which often leads to what a district attorney called the police "expected killings."
The New York Times listed these and other problems in a shocking investigation of this culture, which often turns common traffic parking violations into unnecessary beatings, car chases, or shootings.
The Times investigation found that in the past five years, police had killed more than 400 drivers who had not brandished guns or knives or were not pursued for dangerous crimes.
Many of these drivers ended up dying in parking that started with standard violations, such as damaged tail lights or running red lights. The prosecutors persuaded the court time and time again that they believed that the killing was legally justified because the police officers felt that their lives were threatened.
Only five police officers were convicted for crimes related to these deaths-but the local government eventually paid at least $125 million to resolve approximately 40 negligent death lawsuits and other claims.
The "New York Times" investigation found that in multiple encounters, police officers often seemed to exaggerate the threat to their lives. To make matters worse, the police usually station themselves in front of or enter the escaped car, thereby creating danger. They then fired in what they later described as self-defense.
African-American drivers account for an excessively high percentage of victims. A criminologist told The Times that exaggerating the dangers of parking aggravated racial prejudice: "The police believe that'parking is dangerous' and'black people are dangerous', this combination is unstable," he said.
Police are sometimes killed when traffic stops, but statistically speaking, the probability of this happening is very low. Traffic stops are the most common point of contact between people and the law. Given that there are tens of millions of such interceptions each year, studies have found that the chance of an officer being killed in one shot is less than one in 3.6 million.
Despite this, the police academy tends to show trainees bloody videos and worst-case scenarios, while describing traffic stops as the most dangerous encounter that police officers can participate in.
As a police officer told The Times: "All you hear are horror stories about what may happen. It is very difficult to try to train this ability from someone." A culture of gross exaggeration creates a kind of culture. Atmosphere in which shameless police actions leading to civilian deaths are considered acceptable.
For example, a survey by The Times found that more than three-quarters of unarmed motorists were killed while trying to escape. The dashboard and body camera footage showed that police officers “fired at the car that was driving away, or threatened the driver with lethal force, or surrounded the sleeping driver with a ring of barrels-and then attacked them when they tried to take off after they woke up. shot."
The federal government spends more than $600 million a year to subsidize invoicing, thereby exacerbating the problem. At least 20 states have responded to this policy, assessing them based on the number of police stops per hour.
Communities that rely on revenue from transportation tickets sometimes maintain larger police departments than they really need, just to make money. The New York Times survey found that at least 10% of the income of more than 730 cities depends on fees and fines.
Nearly 90% of the general income of Henderson, Louisiana, with a population of approximately 2,000, came from fines and fees in 2019. There are about 380 people in Oliver, Georgia, and more than half of their budget comes from fines. A state investigation found that last year the town’s police force issued fines worth more than $40,000 outside of its legal jurisdiction.
In particular, the department that conducts trawl investigations on poor communities for ticket revenues — whose officials sometimes create irregularities — undermines trust in the law. For-profit policing also exposes motorists to unfair scrutiny and creates potential dangers with the police during traffic stops. The states and municipalities need to get rid of this practice.
The Times is committed to publishing various letters to the editor. We want to hear your thoughts on this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. This is our email: letters@nytimes.com.
Follow the New York Times opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.