Policing is an essential component of a functioning society. The people put their trust into the police to fairly and justly enforce the law and not abuse their privileges. Yet in our modern society, many people don’t trust police to adequately enforce the law which in turn creates disputes.
Speed traps are one of the many controversial techniques used by police to enforce safety. Many traps are strategically placed in areas where cars travel above the speed limit such as when going down a hill. They often create traffic on roads because people slow down when approaching police cars just so they won’t get ticketed. One Florida town, Waldo, had a police department that enforced six speed limit changes in just a couple of miles. In 2013, seven officers wrote up 12,000 speeding tickets totaling $400,000, accounting for a third of the town’s revenue for that year. While this may be an extreme case, it does not shy away from the problem.
Ticket quotas are the reason why speed traps are such a problem. Police departments are relied upon heavily by cities as a source of income, deviating from the original purpose of serving the people. People are unlikely to challenge the tickets they are given because of work schedules which in turn allows the cities to make a profit. In a lawsuit filed against the City of New York for stop-and-frisk, multiple officers testified that they had to write a minimum amount of tickets every month as well as arrest people. Further testimonies also included specific targeting of minority racial groups, a modern day discrimination. Quotas attract a negative vibe to police because they make them seem like bad people when in reality they should be seen as good enforcers of the law.
The Declaration of Independence states that “all men are created equal,” yet we fave the problem of selective policing. Police officers simply choose not to enforce the law on some people and in other cases don’t even obey the law themselves. Such a situation is often seen when police turn on their sirens in order to drive past red lights or excessively speed. Another issue is the police union cards that are issued to friends and family by police officers. This is an unethical practice which gives relatives of police officers a chance to get out of paying fines or even being ticketed at all for minor offenses. Making certain people above the law is unconstitutional but since no one is willing to admit it, the issue goes unnoticed to change.
Ultimately the police have lost track of their true purpose, which is to serve the people. Too many cities and townships are using the police as a means of easy income instead of finding more ethical sources. Likewise police are allowed too much slack in terms of not following the law which they are entrusted to enforce. Only a complete overhaul of the policing system would solve the problems that people are currently facing with the police.
Sources:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/florida-town-infamous-for-speed-traps-disbanding-police-force/
http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/22/justice/new-york-stop-and-frisk-trial/
http://www.nj.com/njvoices/index.ssf/2012/05/pba_cards_do_they_work_and_sho.html
I disagree with your points regarding speed traps. Speed traps are necessary to maintain safety on dangerous roads and highways since high velocity objects create a very large force that is devastating to multiple parties during impact. If what you say is true, speed traps need to be moved to different places so that drivers do not anticipate them and feel the need to slow down thus avoiding traffic. Speed traps, however, need to be limited but should still exist. I agree with your point that quotas are unethical and do not contribute to a safer society. However, if there aren’t quotas at all, officers may slack on the job and that would not be ideal in terms of safety. A good solution is to limit quotas and lower the amount instead of eliminating them entirely. I agree with your comments that selective policing is unethical. The police should not abuse their power and are governed by the same laws that apply to the people. Abusing their power is the start of overstepping their boundaries and corruption. Union cards need to be banned and those holding them need thorough background checks to make sure they have not been committing any crimes that have gone unnoticed. The police have not “lost track of their true purpose” and they are still protecting and serving the community, merely they are incentivized by money. A “complete overhaul of the policing system” is unnecessary and impractical since limiting these incentives will contribute in solving most of the problems you listed.
I do agree with you that speed traps are controversial and quite annoying in the fact that they are designed to ‘trap’ us, the civilian drivers. But they are necessary because they do deter drivers from speeding and ultimately causing harm to themselves and others who are in the wrong place at the wrong time. I also agree with you with respect to how strategically placed the traps are, and I think they should be moved to sections of road where there has proven to be many accidents or even areas where there is an elevated risk of accidents. Intertwined with this issue of speed traps is the ever-present question of how do we evaluate an officers worth? Clearly in the past and even now it is by the dollar sign. The more tickets you write, the more money you can bring in, the ‘better’ cop you are. This obviously makes no logical sense but this is the standard we have come to recognize. Also, I wouldn’t say that the police are ‘deviating from the original purpose of serving the people’ because they do, for the most part, keep our communities safe; or at least safer than it would be if they were not around. But there is no doubt flaws in the way police go about there business, whether it be in the form of speed traps, tickets or other, but changes will not make much of an effect on the base level, the problem lies deeper in our judicial system.
In your post you brought up the unethical nature of PBA cards, which police can give to friends and family as a sort of “get out of jail free card.” This is something I’ve thought a lot about. My father is a retired detective who was hurt on the job many years ago. I think of these cards as I sign of respect and gratitude for my fathers work in the field. He was always running toward danger rather than away from it, and so I feel as though these cards are a showing of gratitude. It’s worth keeping in mind that PBA cards can only get individuals out of petty crimes (such as speeding tickets), which pose no real threat to the community. I do however agree that too many of these cards are given out. Every year my dad is given enough PBA cards to give to my entire extended family (which is quite large). That is ridiculous and unfair. I feel they should have a more restricted use.