Policing or Profiteering?

Frank Borelli
Editor-in-Chief
Officer.com

In this article contributors Michael Wasilewski and Althea Olson discuss the ethical dilemma some police administrators and executives face when considering the necessity and value of traffic enforcement as a revenue raising tool. The ugly truth of it is that ANY administrator has to worry about budgets. The challenge for law enforcement administrators is to make the politicians understand that enforcing the law can never be about raising funds. This was my biggest challenge a few years back (okay... a little more than a decade ago) when the municipality that I worked for was deciding whether or not to put in red-light cameras. The conversations rarely, if ever, seemed to revolve around traffic enforcement or increasing public safety. Instead, the conversations were all about where to put the cameras to maximize revenues. In fact, and I've made this argument before, it's my belief that if every driver stopped at red lights, the red-light enforcement cameras would go away. Why? Because there is a maintenance cost attached to every camera and if the cameras aren't generating revenue, the cities, counties and states won't pay to maintain them. They'll get rid of them instead. I've even spoken to judges who felt that misdemeanor traffic violations shouldn't go to court. Instead they felt that the violations could be handled administratively by the Motor Vehicle Administration. When I argued that such would only allow the state's to raise fines and increase revenues through unfair findings the judge I was speaking with made the same observation about the courts. He was NOT saying that other judges were partial in favor of the state, but he was clearly stating that any suggestion of impropriety that could be made about a system favoring revenue could be made about the courts. After all, they were state courts and answered to someone somewhere along the line who had to worry about budgets and revenues. It behooves public safety employees to examine their process when developing budgets. There are always a long list of expense line items, but rarely are their predictable revenue items. Sure, an agency can project parking citation revenue based on a pervious year's number, but what if the parking violations are fewer? Rest assured that some Mayor somewhere is asking some Chief somewhere to justify WHY his agency isn't producing as much revenue as was projected. THAT is the point at which the Chief needs to (very carefully) remind the mayor that law enforcement isn't about revenue; it's about serving and protecting the public, enforcing the law and peace keeping. I'd enjoy reading any comments you have on this subject. Please, if you comment, indicate if you are a sworn law enforcement officer, law enforcement administrator or someone not in the law enforcement field.