from Hacker News

How St. Louis County, Missouri Profits from Poverty

by mgulaid on 9/3/14, 7:41 PM with 50 comments

  • by brown on 9/3/14, 8:29 PM

    If you're a millionaire, a $50 speeding ticket is barely a deterrent. If you're poor, the same $50 speeding ticket can completely break you. That doesn't feel right.

    As much as I personally would dislike it, Finland's model for traffic fines is probably a more "fair" strategy.

    http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/multimillionaire-faces...

    (edited for clarity)

  • by brps on 9/3/14, 9:45 PM

    As a resident of North County this rings very true. I had a crack in my window. Several hundred to repair that I did not have. Worked part time minimum wage while in college. Need my car to get to work and school. Registration renewal came up. I could not get it renewed because I had a cracked window. Over the next few months going to work to make money to fix my window so I can renew my plates, I get five tickets from three jurisdictions. Then proceed to get a warrant because I lost track off all my ticket court dates and missed one. Get arrested, and finally have to beg my parents for the couple thousand I needed to get out of jail, pay off my warrant, pay my court costs, pay my tickets, fix my window and get my registration up to date. I am white and luckily have middle class parents to fall back on.

  • by thaumasiotes on 9/3/14, 9:04 PM

    > Quinn’s client, for example, was the victim in a domestic abuse incident. But when the police arrived, they checked her occupancy permit, which only allowed for one person to reside at the apartment. The officers then cited the woman and her boyfriend $74 each for violating the permit. When Quinn protested that the law makes no effort to distinguish visitors from unlawful residents, the municipal prosecutor stated that “nothing good happens after 10pm” when single men and women are alone together — a sentiment later echoed by the judge.

    In a different case, a Tennessee judge ruled that a child had to be renamed by its parents because

    (1) "Messiah" is a title, not a name,

    (2) that title is held by only one person,

    and (3) that person is Jesus Christ.

    Obviously, that ruling was grossly unconstitutional. But local courts often have only a hazy, at best, grasp of the law. I suspect it wouldn't be hard to have the principle that a single woman is prohibited by law from entertaining male visitors after 10 pm overturned in very strong terms... if anyone who could work within the court system were ever affected by this.

    It would be nice if our legal system didn't deteriorate so badly at the bottom tiers. My guess is that the staffing levels necessary to provide our current levels of "oversight" preclude the obvious approach of only hiring people who can be expected to know what they're doing.

  • by crazypyro on 9/3/14, 8:26 PM

    As someone that's lived in STL for the past 3-4 months, I cannot believe how many different police cars there are on my 20 minute commute every single day. On one road (St. Charles Rock Road actually) I drive to work on, I pass at least 3 different jurisdictions that generally has at least 2 cops on it every day. After that road, I get onto the highway and about a few miles down, St.Ann Police Department sets up a speed trap about once a week on I-70. There are of course other cities that set up speed traps, but St.Ann is one of the most obnoxious and common because they are next to the airport and there's a curve that makes it ridiculously easy to catch speeders and there's always speeders near an airport. The entire time St.Louis County police are also within the same overall area also trying to catch people on their way to and from work. Everyone just trying to get their money so their useless department can stay open.

  • by freehunter on 9/3/14, 8:30 PM

    >And when I’m late, I speed.

    How the poor are treated in our country is a crime, yes, but if you can't afford a speeding ticket, you can avoid getting a speeding ticket by not speeding. Going faster than the speed limit doesn't really get you there appreciably faster, but it does increase your chances of being in an accident substantially and greatly increases your chances of getting a speeding ticket.

    Stealing food to support your family is one thing. That literally means you can eat that night. Speeding is completely avoidable. It doesn't mean a corrupt officer won't still pull you over for something, but it surely would reduce the odds that they would look your way.

  • by mgulaid on 9/3/14, 9:47 PM

    Reading this article reminded of the time, I used to go to community college, while doing a part time job and interning in downtown SF. In one semester I accumulate about $475 worth of parking and traffic fees. My schedule was too hectic that I could not afford to take public transportation and slow down. Being a working-person the United States is very stressful and undignified in some instances. You can't afford to make mistakes or get sick. In my case, I was lucky that the judge in SF granted me to do community services to pay off the majority of my fees.

    Secondly, I am amazed why there are too many policing jurisdictions in each county. You have the City Police, County Police, Highway Patrol, local SWAT teams, and State Police, in addition to Federal and drug enforcement agencies. Too many inefficiencies and redundancies.

  • by imgabe on 9/3/14, 8:32 PM

    How much does it cost to incarcerate people for this long? Does it outweigh the cost of the fines in the first place? If not, why even bother?

  • by MrMan on 9/3/14, 8:13 PM

    Does everyone agree that Uber will make these problems a thing of the past?