Comment by jonathankoren
3 years ago
Police are revenue generators. It's the same in both big cities and small towns.
A town of 300 people I grew up next to, always had their one cop ticketing every car that didn't slow down from the posted 55 mph (but honestly, it was always faster) to 30 mph, or accelerated over 30 before they passed the city limits sign.
The city government loved that guy, because he brought in thousands of dollars every week.
When the NYPD threw a fit over de Blasio, they famously refused to arrest anyone unless "it was absolutely necessary". Why? The police union wanted to hurt NYC's[0] budget.[0] It's the same reason why civil forfeiture is so prevelant.
[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/12/the-ben...
There are some towns where the police have so little headcount that they have enough "real crime" to keep their officers as busy as they want to be and so unpredictably the officers would rather bust drug traffickers and respond to violence than write tickets. These tend to be poor urban communities where the cops (very much like teachers) only work there for a short time early in their careers.
But yes, in the general case you're right that law enforcement is a revenue generator.