The city of ºüÀêÊÓƵ and surrounding municipalities, both rich and poor, have backed off their longtime practice of using abusive police and court practices to pad their bank accounts. The that brought about the changes are working and should not be undone, as state Sen. Bob Dixon, R-Springfield, proposes to do.
across the region, along with the amount of fees and fines collected by courts, as reported by the Post-Dispatch’s Jeremy Kohler. The predatory municipal justice system raised $52 million for ºüÀêÊÓƵ County municipalities in the year ending June 2014, and only $22 million in the year ending June 2017.
Police in municipalities like Bellefontaine Neighbors wrote 27 tickets a day in 2014. They now write five a day. The city’s police chief says they fight dangerous driving with billboards, brochures and public awareness campaigns. Police officers have conversations with drivers and use verbal and written warnings.
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Municipal leaders who want their cash cows back moan that lawless driving has erupted since the changes took effect. That’s not supported by data. Driving appears to be the same as it’s always been.
But law enforcement has changed. Police are no longer told that their pay will hinge on the number of tickets they write, nor are they encouraged to write nuisance tickets just to keep the revenue churning. Gone are radar gun-wielding police and modern-day debtors’ prisons, where people got fines heaped on fines and then were jailed for failing to pay those fines or for not appearing for a court hearing. Some municipalities offer community service as alternatives to sentencing.
The reforms also led to the demise of at least one north ºüÀêÊÓƵ County community, Vinita Terrace, which used traffic court revenue to fund more than half its budget. It merged with neighboring Vinita Park last year. Local governments that can’t make ends meet without sucking revenue from citizens should dissolve.
State Treasurer Eric Schmitt was a Republican state senator from Glendale when he that he says “put an end to taxation-by-citation schemes.†The law limits the amount of money cities can make from traffic violations, caps the amount of fines that can be imposed on a person for traffic violations and permits community service as an alternative to fee payments.
Missouri’s Supreme Court ruled later that courts had to have bigger courtrooms, more personnel and fewer conflicts of interest among judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys.
, which is awaiting Senate debate, would allow cities to keep more court revenue, reinstate charges for failing to appear in court and allow municipalities to jail people for not paying minor traffic or ordinance fines.
This would be a backward step for Missouri. Cities that can’t function without squeezing money out of people don’t deserve another chance.