10 ms·

Police that collect more in fees and fines are less effective at solving crime

235 points by part997 8y ago

visarga 8y ago
No understand the title. The article is blocked (at least in Europe).
- ThorinJacobs 8y ago
  The crux quote from the article is "Police departments that collect more in fees and fines are less effective at solving crimes."
- slacka 8y ago
  Normally, I'd suggest you subscribe to support quality journalism, but since you are from Europe: http://archive.is/hvDCa http://archive.is/hvDCa
- macintux 8y ago
  The grammar must have been butchered when creating an HN-friendly title. The current WaPo headline: "What happens to police departments that collect more fines? They solve fewer crimes."
dsfyu404ed 8y ago
>If Middletown’s police department collected only about 1 percent of its revenue from fees and fines, our model predicts it would solve 53 percent of its violent crimes and 32 percent of its property crimes. But if Middletown’s police department instead collected 3 percent of its revenue from fees and fines, our model predicts that clearance rates would fall to 41 percent for violent crimes and 16 percent for property crimes. That’s a stark drop of 12 and 16 percentage points, respectively. I want to see this broken down in terms of business days between crime and someone being charged. I have a suspicion that the correlation is being diluted by all the open and shut "guy A punches guy B and gets charged with assault and battery because everyone in the bar saw him do it" cases that don't require any investigating (other than possibly collecting statements) types of violent crime that will get "solved" regardless of how much time the police spend collecting fines.
- merpnderp 8y ago
  But those types of crimes would need to occur at significantly different rates between different fine and fee jurisdictions.
- snarf21 8y ago
  I think this misses the point. Issues like this are multi-faceted. Would people rather pay higher taxes or have the police get the money from speeders and parking violators? People who live in cities must have parking rules or you are walking 4 blocks from your car to house each night. My brother-in-law is a state police. When he was on patrol, they would get lots of calls because someone mowed across someone else's property line. Or someone stole someone else's pet rabbit. Once a mom called in and claimed that her teenage son was assaulting her. When they arrived, it turned out he just wasn't listening to her and doing chores and homework so she wanted to 'scare him straight' and have the police tell him he had to. Other ones are because some 15 year old texted nudes or posted on Instagram that they were going to 'kill' a teacher that gave them a bad grade. He is now a detective and it is like you say above. The easy ones get solved right away after some minor investigation but there are no resources to spend weeks investigating murders with no witnesses or likely suspects. In the end, part of it comes down to what do you want the police function to be.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - vkou 8y ago
    > Would people rather pay higher taxes or have the police get the money from speeders and parking violators? People who live in cities must have parking rules or you are walking 4 blocks from your car to house each night. Given that everyone[1] speeds, I think you're comparing half dozen of one to six of the other. [1] Okay, something like 95% of the vehicles on the road, and everyone hates the other 5%.
  - mgkimsal 8y ago
    > Once a mom called in and claimed that her teenage son was assaulting her. When they arrived, it turned out he just wasn't listening to her and doing chores and homework so she wanted to 'scare him straight' and have the police tell him he had to Wow.... I would like to see that parent charged with wasting police time.
kgwxd 8y ago
It makes no sense that money police collects goes directly towards funding any government department. It should go into a tax refund pool.
- merpnderp 8y ago
  I was trying to think of a place to stick the money that wouldn't incentivize over-policing and couldn't think of one. But your option is perfect. There's obviously no incentive for government employees to return money to tax payers, so if anything, this would incentivize under-enforcement of fines and fees.
  - antsar 8y ago
    Aren't government employees also taxpayers? The incentive is much weaker, but still there.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      So weak as to make the point totally moot
    - CM30 8y ago
      Well at least then everyone would benefit rather than just the police/government.
  - Gibbon1 8y ago
    I thought long and hard about that one and decided that fines should be remitted to the social security administration and booked against the perps account as a contribution. As far as I can tell this is extremely easy to implement. And utterly removes any mal-incentives.
    - maym86 8y ago
      It means the fine could have less of a deterrant effect on anyone who can afford it as they can frame it as money they'll get back in the long run. Why not speed if your ticket counts towards your retirement. Having a inbuilt social good for breaking the law might make people more willing to do so as they can justify their illegal action as a contribution to public good.
SteveParker60 8y ago
How unusual! A link to a paywall on Hacker News.
- Broken_Hippo 8y ago
  I get no paywall. I have an adblocker, so I use private browsing. It says I can read a limited number of articles per month, so long as I allow ads - but Ive not run into this using this method. Perhaps if you are using a regular browser without an adblock, you reach a maximum? and if so, perhaps use a private browsing session next month? Also: http://archive.is/hvDCa http://archive.is/hvDCa
- boomboomsubban 8y ago
  Hit the "web" button under the title, Washington Post doesn't pay wall from Google results.
- dang 8y ago
  Since you've posted nothing but unsubstantive comments, I've banned your account. It's not what this site is for. If you don't want to be banned, read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and feel free to email us at hn@ycombinator.com.
prepend 8y ago
I wasn’t able to find any controls for the possibility of high percent fee-funded police department having lower ability to invest in quality workforce and training. I see the correlation, but not the causal link. Is high fee a symptom of lower effectiveness rather than high fees causing lower effectiveness? Or they have no causal link at all? This seems pretty important, anybody else get this from the paper? I’m interested in having this research concluded because my gut agrees with the sentiment that incentivizing police to collect fees will reduce impact on non-fee crimes. But my head won’t let me act without reliable evidence.
- cascom 8y ago
  yeah - i don't even know how you begin to compare a rural police department with a handful of officers (who hand off major cases to county/state investigators and are really there to break up bar fights/domestic disputes, keep the roads safe, and provide police reports for property crimes) to say the NYC police department that has 30k+
- stevew20 8y ago
  Instead of pushing for a data driven conclusion, what about this: A police officer has 1.0 amount of time in a shift. If he spends 0.2 of his shift sitting at a speed trap trying to meet some quota, he has 0.8 of his shift left to patrol / help solve crimes; however, the reciprocal of this ratio could occur to, depending on which duties he is assigned. Now step back... The entire police force has 1.0 amount of time per officer per shift. In order to meet budget goals, they allocate 0.8 of that time to speed traps. Now 0.2 of man hours are spent actually doing anything useful (hint: solving crimes do not pay the bills... ). We can examine data to confirm this, however I don't see the need. When you have a time budget, every activity takes a portion of that time. If you spend 90% of your time playing solitaire at work, you aren't going to be very productive. The relationship is absolute, so the data should support it. If not, there is some noise interfering.
  - prepend 8y ago
    Logically it makes sense, but would there be no officer at all without the .8 spent on speed traps? So is it bad governing that underfunds police so it must spent .8 on ticketing? Or is it the spending .8 of time on ticketing that causes less effective police? As a programmer, I don’t agree with the absolute that someone who spends 90% of their day playing solitaire will be less productive than another spending 0% of their day.
En_gr_Student 8y ago
It is obvious in retrospect: if they major on quota-day, they minor on felonies.
crankylinuxuser 8y ago
Serious question then: So if a police department didn't profit from any of the spoils of (alleged) crime, they would be an ideal force?
ransom1538 8y ago
Our local police department (Oviedo florida) takes a police car 200 ft from the station and sits it by a 25mph zone that feeds into a 50 mph zone [1]. Now that my wife and I have both been ticketed (30mph) we go the speed limit -- what is even more weird --- going 25mph near a freeway is really dangerous as cars honk and freak out behind you swerving to get around you. https://www.google.com/maps/place/28%C2%B038'57.5%22N+81%C2%B012'19.7%22W/@28.6493175,-81.2060261,19z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d28.6493163!4d-81.2054789 https://www.google.com/maps/place/28%C2%B038'57.5%22N+81%C2%...
- wdewind 8y ago
  This is actually the kind of thing your congressperson can sometimes be helpful with. Worth a call.
  - horsecaptin 8y ago
    Amen. Cruel and unusual is what this is.
- maxsilver 8y ago
  This is one of the few areas where Michigan leads with strong quality legislation. Michigan Public Act 85 of 2006 requires speed limits to be set to reasonable speeds for traffic (generally based on the 85th Percentile rule), so as not to artificially incriminate the general population. It overrides local laws, so it also prevents corrupt municipalities and/or corrupt police departments from lowering the speed limits for financial gains (speed traps). https://www.wzzm13.com/article/news/investigations/13-on-your-side/watchdog/msp-some-grand-rapids-speed-limits-unenforceable/69-13049840 https://www.wzzm13.com/article/news/investigations/13-on-you... https://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2011/10/police_explain_grand_rapids_ar.html https://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2011/10/po... I don't know if Florida has a similar law. But if not, they should consider it.
  - fmfm 8y ago
    >Michigan Public Act 85 of 2006 requires speed limits to be set to reasonable speeds for traffic (generally based on the 85th Percentile rule), so as not to artificially incriminate the general population. While I applaud the intention behind this law, I hope you're overstating Michigan's reliance on the 85th percentile rule. For the uninitiated, "The 85th percentile speed refers to the speed at or below which 85% of vehicles are traveling" [1] as measured by a speed survey of current conditions. The problem with the 85th percentile rule is that it completely ignores the safety of other road users and the surrounding community, taking drivers perception of safety as fact. I think drivers tend to underestimate the risk that increased speed poses to pedestrians and bicyclists, especially in urban and suburban areas. Problems exist even on roads that only allow drivers: 'Raising the speed limit to match the 85th percentile speed may lead to higher operating speeds, and hence a higher 85th percentile speed. This generates an undesirable cycle of speed escalation and reduced safety. As a 2016 Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) report stated, “The 85th percentile speed is not a stationary point. It is, rather, a moving target that increases when speed limits are raised” (Farmer 2016).' Rather than relying primarily on the 85th percentile rule, I hope Michigan gives full weight to the additional factors the MUTCD manual mentions, like “(A) road characteristics, shoulder condition, grade, alignment, and sight distance; (B) the pace; (C) roadside development and environment; (D) parking practices and pedestrian activity; and (E) reported crash experience for at least a 12-month period” [1]. If after considering these factors the road is still a speed trap, then the road should be redesigned to align drivers expectations with the posted speed [2], not the other way around. [1] https://www.ntsb.gov/safety/safety-studies/Documents/SS1701.pdf https://www.ntsb.gov/safety/safety-studies/Documents/SS1701.... [2] methods include narrowing lane width, eliminating or reducing shoulders, reducing the number of lanes, increasing road curvature with pedestrian islands, speed bumps, etc
Theodores 8y ago
Another reason why the U.S.A. should have stayed on with the British Crown. In the UK revenue from speeding tickets goes to the Queen's Consolidated Fund: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_Fund Police officers in the UK don't get to enrich their departments or their local towns by fining more people. For that we have parking and 'yellow box junctions' where councils can make lots of money by fining motorists. It is just a tax on motorists, not really 'crime' what goes on with this.
upofadown 8y ago
Driving is the most dangerous thing most people do. So if the need to collect fines causes more traffic enforcement the result could be more total lives saved and injuries prevented.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
jonathankoren 8y ago
One of the reason why fine collection and civil forfeiture is prioritized is because of the underfunding of police and other basic services.[0] Politicians encourage this because they cut taxes too much, and this is a way to essentially impose a tax, but not call it a tax. The police know the game, and so you end up with these bizarre situations like when the NYPD union announced they they were going to stick it to DeBlasio by making arrests “only when necessary.”[1] (Which of course is an implicit admission that arrests were being made that weren’t necessary.) The real target was the NYC budget, because the NYPD brings in half a billion dollars a year. (Over 10 million a week) That’s insane. Ironically, even though the police stopped citing people, crime remained low and steady. [0] https://www.rand.org/blog/2015/03/to-serve-and-collect.html https://www.rand.org/blog/2015/03/to-serve-and-collect.html [1] https://www.vox.com/2015/1/6/7501953/nypd-mayor-arrests-union https://www.vox.com/2015/1/6/7501953/nypd-mayor-arrests-unio...
throwawaymanbot 8y ago
Fee collection is NOT police work. Its for people who have been told that their pension and salary depends on more "fees" being "processed"

235 points by part997 8y ago

visarga 8y ago

No understand the title. The article is blocked (at least in Europe).

ThorinJacobs 8y ago
The crux quote from the article is "Police departments that collect more in fees and fines are less effective at solving crimes."
slacka 8y ago
Normally, I'd suggest you subscribe to support quality journalism, but since you are from Europe: http://archive.is/hvDCa http://archive.is/hvDCa
macintux 8y ago
The grammar must have been butchered when creating an HN-friendly title. The current WaPo headline: "What happens to police departments that collect more fines? They solve fewer crimes."

dsfyu404ed 8y ago

>If Middletown’s police department collected only about 1 percent of its revenue from fees and fines, our model predicts it would solve 53 percent of its violent crimes and 32 percent of its property crimes. But if Middletown’s police department instead collected 3 percent of its revenue from fees and fines, our model predicts that clearance rates would fall to 41 percent for violent crimes and 16 percent for property crimes. That’s a stark drop of 12 and 16 percentage points, respectively. I want to see this broken down in terms of business days between crime and someone being charged. I have a suspicion that the correlation is being diluted by all the open and shut "guy A punches guy B and gets charged with assault and battery because everyone in the bar saw him do it" cases that don't require any investigating (other than possibly collecting statements) types of violent crime that will get "solved" regardless of how much time the police spend collecting fines.

merpnderp 8y ago
But those types of crimes would need to occur at significantly different rates between different fine and fee jurisdictions.
snarf21 8y ago
I think this misses the point. Issues like this are multi-faceted. Would people rather pay higher taxes or have the police get the money from speeders and parking violators? People who live in cities must have parking rules or you are walking 4 blocks from your car to house each night. My brother-in-law is a state police. When he was on patrol, they would get lots of calls because someone mowed across someone else's property line. Or someone stole someone else's pet rabbit. Once a mom called in and claimed that her teenage son was assaulting her. When they arrived, it turned out he just wasn't listening to her and doing chores and homework so she wanted to 'scare him straight' and have the police tell him he had to. Other ones are because some 15 year old texted nudes or posted on Instagram that they were going to 'kill' a teacher that gave them a bad grade. He is now a detective and it is like you say above. The easy ones get solved right away after some minor investigation but there are no resources to spend weeks investigating murders with no witnesses or likely suspects. In the end, part of it comes down to what do you want the police function to be.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- vkou 8y ago
  > Would people rather pay higher taxes or have the police get the money from speeders and parking violators? People who live in cities must have parking rules or you are walking 4 blocks from your car to house each night. Given that everyone[1] speeds, I think you're comparing half dozen of one to six of the other. [1] Okay, something like 95% of the vehicles on the road, and everyone hates the other 5%.
- mgkimsal 8y ago
  > Once a mom called in and claimed that her teenage son was assaulting her. When they arrived, it turned out he just wasn't listening to her and doing chores and homework so she wanted to 'scare him straight' and have the police tell him he had to Wow.... I would like to see that parent charged with wasting police time.

kgwxd 8y ago

It makes no sense that money police collects goes directly towards funding any government department. It should go into a tax refund pool.

merpnderp 8y ago
I was trying to think of a place to stick the money that wouldn't incentivize over-policing and couldn't think of one. But your option is perfect. There's obviously no incentive for government employees to return money to tax payers, so if anything, this would incentivize under-enforcement of fines and fees.
- antsar 8y ago
  Aren't government employees also taxpayers? The incentive is much weaker, but still there.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    So weak as to make the point totally moot
  - CM30 8y ago
    Well at least then everyone would benefit rather than just the police/government.
- Gibbon1 8y ago
  I thought long and hard about that one and decided that fines should be remitted to the social security administration and booked against the perps account as a contribution. As far as I can tell this is extremely easy to implement. And utterly removes any mal-incentives.
  - maym86 8y ago
    It means the fine could have less of a deterrant effect on anyone who can afford it as they can frame it as money they'll get back in the long run. Why not speed if your ticket counts towards your retirement. Having a inbuilt social good for breaking the law might make people more willing to do so as they can justify their illegal action as a contribution to public good.

SteveParker60 8y ago

How unusual! A link to a paywall on Hacker News.

Broken_Hippo 8y ago
I get no paywall. I have an adblocker, so I use private browsing. It says I can read a limited number of articles per month, so long as I allow ads - but Ive not run into this using this method. Perhaps if you are using a regular browser without an adblock, you reach a maximum? and if so, perhaps use a private browsing session next month? Also: http://archive.is/hvDCa http://archive.is/hvDCa
boomboomsubban 8y ago
Hit the "web" button under the title, Washington Post doesn't pay wall from Google results.
dang 8y ago
Since you've posted nothing but unsubstantive comments, I've banned your account. It's not what this site is for. If you don't want to be banned, read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and feel free to email us at hn@ycombinator.com.

prepend 8y ago

I wasn’t able to find any controls for the possibility of high percent fee-funded police department having lower ability to invest in quality workforce and training. I see the correlation, but not the causal link. Is high fee a symptom of lower effectiveness rather than high fees causing lower effectiveness? Or they have no causal link at all? This seems pretty important, anybody else get this from the paper? I’m interested in having this research concluded because my gut agrees with the sentiment that incentivizing police to collect fees will reduce impact on non-fee crimes. But my head won’t let me act without reliable evidence.

cascom 8y ago
yeah - i don't even know how you begin to compare a rural police department with a handful of officers (who hand off major cases to county/state investigators and are really there to break up bar fights/domestic disputes, keep the roads safe, and provide police reports for property crimes) to say the NYC police department that has 30k+
stevew20 8y ago
Instead of pushing for a data driven conclusion, what about this: A police officer has 1.0 amount of time in a shift. If he spends 0.2 of his shift sitting at a speed trap trying to meet some quota, he has 0.8 of his shift left to patrol / help solve crimes; however, the reciprocal of this ratio could occur to, depending on which duties he is assigned. Now step back... The entire police force has 1.0 amount of time per officer per shift. In order to meet budget goals, they allocate 0.8 of that time to speed traps. Now 0.2 of man hours are spent actually doing anything useful (hint: solving crimes do not pay the bills... ). We can examine data to confirm this, however I don't see the need. When you have a time budget, every activity takes a portion of that time. If you spend 90% of your time playing solitaire at work, you aren't going to be very productive. The relationship is absolute, so the data should support it. If not, there is some noise interfering.
- prepend 8y ago
  Logically it makes sense, but would there be no officer at all without the .8 spent on speed traps? So is it bad governing that underfunds police so it must spent .8 on ticketing? Or is it the spending .8 of time on ticketing that causes less effective police? As a programmer, I don’t agree with the absolute that someone who spends 90% of their day playing solitaire will be less productive than another spending 0% of their day.

En_gr_Student 8y ago

It is obvious in retrospect: if they major on quota-day, they minor on felonies.

crankylinuxuser 8y ago

Serious question then: So if a police department didn't profit from any of the spoils of (alleged) crime, they would be an ideal force?

ransom1538 8y ago

Our local police department (Oviedo florida) takes a police car 200 ft from the station and sits it by a 25mph zone that feeds into a 50 mph zone [1]. Now that my wife and I have both been ticketed (30mph) we go the speed limit -- what is even more weird --- going 25mph near a freeway is really dangerous as cars honk and freak out behind you swerving to get around you. https://www.google.com/maps/place/28%C2%B038'57.5%22N+81%C2%B012'19.7%22W/@28.6493175,-81.2060261,19z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d28.6493163!4d-81.2054789 https://www.google.com/maps/place/28%C2%B038'57.5%22N+81%C2%...

wdewind 8y ago
This is actually the kind of thing your congressperson can sometimes be helpful with. Worth a call.
- horsecaptin 8y ago
  Amen. Cruel and unusual is what this is.
maxsilver 8y ago
This is one of the few areas where Michigan leads with strong quality legislation. Michigan Public Act 85 of 2006 requires speed limits to be set to reasonable speeds for traffic (generally based on the 85th Percentile rule), so as not to artificially incriminate the general population. It overrides local laws, so it also prevents corrupt municipalities and/or corrupt police departments from lowering the speed limits for financial gains (speed traps). https://www.wzzm13.com/article/news/investigations/13-on-your-side/watchdog/msp-some-grand-rapids-speed-limits-unenforceable/69-13049840 https://www.wzzm13.com/article/news/investigations/13-on-you... https://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2011/10/police_explain_grand_rapids_ar.html https://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2011/10/po... I don't know if Florida has a similar law. But if not, they should consider it.
- fmfm 8y ago
  >Michigan Public Act 85 of 2006 requires speed limits to be set to reasonable speeds for traffic (generally based on the 85th Percentile rule), so as not to artificially incriminate the general population. While I applaud the intention behind this law, I hope you're overstating Michigan's reliance on the 85th percentile rule. For the uninitiated, "The 85th percentile speed refers to the speed at or below which 85% of vehicles are traveling" [1] as measured by a speed survey of current conditions. The problem with the 85th percentile rule is that it completely ignores the safety of other road users and the surrounding community, taking drivers perception of safety as fact. I think drivers tend to underestimate the risk that increased speed poses to pedestrians and bicyclists, especially in urban and suburban areas. Problems exist even on roads that only allow drivers: 'Raising the speed limit to match the 85th percentile speed may lead to higher operating speeds, and hence a higher 85th percentile speed. This generates an undesirable cycle of speed escalation and reduced safety. As a 2016 Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) report stated, “The 85th percentile speed is not a stationary point. It is, rather, a moving target that increases when speed limits are raised” (Farmer 2016).' Rather than relying primarily on the 85th percentile rule, I hope Michigan gives full weight to the additional factors the MUTCD manual mentions, like “(A) road characteristics, shoulder condition, grade, alignment, and sight distance; (B) the pace; (C) roadside development and environment; (D) parking practices and pedestrian activity; and (E) reported crash experience for at least a 12-month period” [1]. If after considering these factors the road is still a speed trap, then the road should be redesigned to align drivers expectations with the posted speed [2], not the other way around. [1] https://www.ntsb.gov/safety/safety-studies/Documents/SS1701.pdf https://www.ntsb.gov/safety/safety-studies/Documents/SS1701.... [2] methods include narrowing lane width, eliminating or reducing shoulders, reducing the number of lanes, increasing road curvature with pedestrian islands, speed bumps, etc

Theodores 8y ago

Another reason why the U.S.A. should have stayed on with the British Crown. In the UK revenue from speeding tickets goes to the Queen's Consolidated Fund: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_Fund Police officers in the UK don't get to enrich their departments or their local towns by fining more people. For that we have parking and 'yellow box junctions' where councils can make lots of money by fining motorists. It is just a tax on motorists, not really 'crime' what goes on with this.

upofadown 8y ago

Driving is the most dangerous thing most people do. So if the need to collect fines causes more traffic enforcement the result could be more total lives saved and injuries prevented.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

jonathankoren 8y ago

One of the reason why fine collection and civil forfeiture is prioritized is because of the underfunding of police and other basic services.[0] Politicians encourage this because they cut taxes too much, and this is a way to essentially impose a tax, but not call it a tax. The police know the game, and so you end up with these bizarre situations like when the NYPD union announced they they were going to stick it to DeBlasio by making arrests “only when necessary.”[1] (Which of course is an implicit admission that arrests were being made that weren’t necessary.) The real target was the NYC budget, because the NYPD brings in half a billion dollars a year. (Over 10 million a week) That’s insane. Ironically, even though the police stopped citing people, crime remained low and steady. [0] https://www.rand.org/blog/2015/03/to-serve-and-collect.html https://www.rand.org/blog/2015/03/to-serve-and-collect.html [1] https://www.vox.com/2015/1/6/7501953/nypd-mayor-arrests-union https://www.vox.com/2015/1/6/7501953/nypd-mayor-arrests-unio...

throwawaymanbot 8y ago

Fee collection is NOT police work. Its for people who have been told that their pension and salary depends on more "fees" being "processed"