How municipalities in St. Louis County, Mo., profit from poverty

Washington Post ^ | September 3, 2014 | Radley Balko

[Second Amendment First]

On March 20 in the St. Louis County town of Florissant, someone made an illegal U-turn in front of Nicole Bolden. The 32-year-old black single mother hit her brakes but couldn’t avoid a collision. Bolden wasn’t at fault for the accident and wanted to continue on her way. The other motorist insisted on calling the police, as per the law. When the officer showed up, Bolden filled with dread.

“He was really nice and polite at first,” Bolden says. “But once he ran my name, he got real mean with me. He told me I was going to jail. I had my 3-year-old and my one-and-a-half-year-old with me. I asked him about my kids. He said I had better find someone to come and get them, because he was taking me in.” The Florissant officer arrested and cuffed Bolden in front of her children. Her kids remained with another officer until Bolden’s mother and sister could come pick them up.

The officer found that Bolden had four arrest warrants in three separate jurisdictions: the towns of Florissant and Hazelwood in St. Louis County and the town of Foristell in St. Charles County. All of the warrants were for failure to appear in court for traffic violations. Bolden hadn’t appeared in court because she didn’t have the money. A couple of those fines were for speeding, one was for failure to wear her seatbelt and most of the rest were for what defense attorneys in the St. Louis area have come to call “poverty violations” — driving with a suspended license, expired plates, expired registration and a failure to provide proof of insurance.

[Second Amendment First]

There is no question in my mind that the main function of the police here is revenue collection. Towns with a piece of interstate going through put up speed cameras. Forestell is known for it's speed trap on I-70 west of St. Louis. St. Ann cops are all along I-70 by the airport.

In St. Charles county each town has it's own force, plus the sheriffs officers, plus a newly created county police department.

The Highway Patrol in St. Charles county sends it's rookies out to the local shopping areas on weekends to practice by getting revenue out of the white middle class housewives for minor offenses like too dark window tinting etc.

Now in St. Louis county Flordell Hills, with just 822 residents, will soon have its own police force:

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/flordell-hills-with-just-residents-will-soon-have-its-own/article_92a738a9-1f88-5a82-8acb-362735bab904.html

[Theoria]

From a previous thread.

Revenue agents are out of control.

'Twenty-two percent of Ferguson residents live below the poverty line, and 21.7 percent receive food stamps. The unemployment rate in the town is 14.3 percent, or more than double that of St. Louis County and Missouri as a whole.

“Despite Ferguson’s relative poverty, fines and court fees comprise the second largest source of revenue for the city, a total of 2,635,400,” according to the ArchCity Defenders report. And in 2013, the Ferguson Municipal Court issued 24,532 arrest warrants and 12,018 cases, “or about 3 warrants and 1.5 cases per household.”

Exacerbating the problem, the report says, are "a number of operational procedures that make it even more difficult for defendants to navigate the courts." A Ferguson court employee reported, for example, that “the bench routinely starts hearing cases 30 minutes before the appointed time and then locks the doors to the building as early as five minutes after the official hour, a practice that could easily lead a defendant arriving even slightly late to receive an additional charge for failure to appear.”'

[Responsibility2nd]

From earlier today....

How municipalities in St. Louis County, Missouri profit from poverty

Thursday, September 04, 2014 6:26:45 AM · by iowamark · 32 replies

Washington Post ^ | 9/3/2014 | Rodney Balko

 

 

Its a looooonnnnnggggggg article. And as you expect - it gets down to Ferguson and how its all Whiteys' fault.

 

[hosepipe]

On the other hand; having lived in St. Louis once upon a time..

I remember of more than one woman upon being evicted for none payment of rent..
Were outraged at that and burnt their apartments down..
How dare “whitey” making those demands..

Theres a million stories in the big city..
And then theres East St. Louis across the river...
I know...... DON’t ASK!!..

[Second Amendment First]

Thanks. I used the search function and had no matches.

Admin, please delete.

[GrootheWanderer]

I shouldn’t be surprised that local governments still practice that sort of blatant corruption. It seems like something you’d expect only in a Third World country, but it probably goes on all over the United States.

[call meVeronica]

Just for argument sake why did she need to speed or not put her seatbelt on?

Not sure this has a great deal to do with poverty but personal responsibility.

[Rockingham]

The article is measured and well-reasoned and makes a persuasive case against the malpractices that it describes. More broadly, local governments everywhere commonly take a financially predatory attitude toward the public with minimal check from elected officials.

[Theoria]

3 warrants per household and over $2.6 million in fines and fees last year, or about $130 per man, woman and child in the town?

Over $500 per family of four on average?

Absurd.

[Rodamala]

"Stop breaking the law, A$$hole."

[Second Amendment First]

Wanted to reply before the thread is deleted. For rebuttal the cops find it easier to collect traffic revenue than go after bigger crimes which require more resources and higher costs, rather than bring in the cash. Is this what you want the police to do?

[DoodleDawg]

St. Louis county is the armpit of Missouri, and most people know it. But in all fairness to them, it's not just a matter of towns preying on poor black people. Across the border from Kansas City is Johnson County, KS. A number of years ago Johnson County spent an enormous sum of money on a new county jail. Once they got it running - it was highly automated and it took a couple of years to get the bugs worked out enough for it to be used - they realized that they had this huge facility and large staff...for a county with comparatively little crime. So they started sentencing people to jail time for comparatively minor offenses. Convictions that will get you probation in Jackson County, Mo. will get you jail time in Johnson County. DUI offenses that will get you suspended sentences in other counties get you sent to jail in Johnson County. And they particularly like to sentence people to work release for DUI or small drug violations or other minor offenses rather than house arrest. That's because they charge you room and board for staying in the work release facility. How much depends on your income but it averages over $300 a month per inmate for a facility that holds several hundred. And which is constantly filled.

So really the only difference between the communities in St. Louis County and the good folks in Johnson County is that the Missouri towns just think small.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Evidently the author feels that blacks are inferior and cannot be held to the same standards as everyone else.

[Rocky]

I agree that municipalities too often use traffic tickets as a major source of revenue rather than for the purpose of trying to maintain safe roads.

But the woman used as an example in this article is another one of these people who makes a whole bunch of bad choices and then wants society to bail her out. It isn’t just poverty, it’s bad choices. Like getting tattoos instead of paying traffic fines. I’m sure if you went to her house you’d find more evidence of money spent on luxuries instead of necessities.

I hope states can find a way to get these small municipalities under control, but trotting out these poverty examples isn’t doing anything for the argument in my book. We all need justice, and crooks in government are especially distressing. Justice should be enough of an argument to win the day.

[Second Amendment First]

I know exactly what you are saying. I was a resident of JoCo before moving east. My son-in-law was stopped as he was taking out daughter to the hospital in labor. He is hispanic and was given a lot of crap before he was allowed to proceed.

[combat_boots]

Cities profit from all people who live within their boundaries. Some of these profits are spent as salaries, while others are operational costs of doing business.

[combat_boots]

“lead a defendant arriving even slightly late to receive an additional charge for failure to appear.”

I can’t for the life of me imagine being late to a court date. It’s not a good idea for any situation.

[Second Amendment First]

Not going to defend the author’s choice of examples but it happens to law abiding white people as well. It is just that we can afford to pay $90 to a traffic lawyer to appear for us and have the charges reduced. What would you do if the court was thirty miles away and was held every two weeks and had a job and children to care for?

[pierrem15]

I'm not sure about that. It seems one white person actually had the appropriate response to the constant harassment:

"Not everyone has handled the indignity as well as Morgan. In 2008, Charles Lee “Cookie” Thornton shot up city hall in the town of Kirwood, killing two city council members, a city planner, and two police officers. He also badly wounded the mayor. When the mostly white Kirkwood annexed the unincorporated black community of Meacham Park 15 years earlier, the construction business Thornton had built and run out of his home ran afoul of his new town’s zoning regulations. Thornton didn’t have the money to move his business to another part of town. Over the next decade, he accumulated $20,000 in fines, lost his business, declared bankruptcy, and was reduced a community punchline. He was the guy with the signs on his van, who interrupted city council meetings with grand conspiracies, and filed lawsuits that were barely readable. His friends and family say the constant harassment cost him his sanity."

Pity the mayor survived.

BTW, the party affiliation of the towns' elected officials is never revealed-- I assume they're all Democrats.

[Second Amendment First]

You know what, stuff happens. I had an appearance long ago in a landlord dispute when my truck transmission died two miles from the courthouse and was blocking traffic. I was fortunate in the I told the first cop on the scene I was due in court and he actually extended the courtesy of calling the court for me.