Armed tax collectors.

[crash_davis 23175]

whatever happened to protect and serve?

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/09/24/want-your-police-department-to-collect-more-fines-it-will-solve-fewer-crimes/?utm_source=reddit.com&utm_term=.646c6d2790da

 

 

Quote

Examining nearly 6,000 cities’ finance and crime data for each of the two studied years, we find a strong link between revenue collection and clearance rates. Police departments in cities that collect a greater share of their revenue from fees, fines and civilly forfeited assets have significantly lower rates of solving violent and property crimes.

We suspect that this comes simply from how these police departments focus their time and resources. Departments that need to collect fee and fine revenue shift their officers away from investigatory work. That’s especially true in smaller cities, where we found an especially clear link: Higher revenue from fees and fines meant fewer violent crimes solved. Cities with smaller departments and fewer resources are less likely to have specialized investigators, so when patrol officers are collecting revenue, they’re not investigating more serious crimes.