5 ms·

How St. Louis County, Missouri Profits from Poverty

46 points by mgulaid 12y ago

MrMan 12y ago
Does everyone agree that Uber will make these problems a thing of the past?
- glibgil 12y ago
  I agree that Uber makes the problem of identifying sheltered sycophants a thing of the past.
- freehunter 12y ago
  Uber will create world peace under the united government of silicon valley, led by our glorious leaders Paul Graham and Marc Andreessen.
- dogecoinbase 12y ago
  No, I don't think that Uber will solve poverty, the actual cause of these issues.
crazypyro 12y ago
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.
- madoublet 12y ago
  I live in St. Louis and see cars blow by me everyday going 20+ MPH over the speed limit and weaving in and out of traffic. I am personally glad the cops are there to act as a deterrent.
  - mikeash 12y ago
    Doesn't that imply that the deterrent isn't working?
    - madoublet 12y ago
      My experience is anecdotal at best, but it does seem that speeding is less common on roads where there are frequent speed traps.
brown 12y ago
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-130-000-speeding-ticket-article-1.1486072 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/multimillionaire-faces... (edited for clarity)
freehunter 12y ago
>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.
- crazypyro 12y ago
  Did you read the article? It's much more than just complaining about speeding tickets... Speeding tickets and other small, petty tickets are turning into weeks in jail and thousands in fines, mostly for poor blacks, because of ridiculous city zoning and fragmented court systems.
  - freehunter 12y ago
    Yes, I obviously read it since I said "the way they're treated is criminal" and also quoted the article itself. The million little cuts is terrible. But one of the little cuts, which the article makes out to be a very common one, is easily avoided. Don't shrug it off with a "I have a lead foot, it's no big deal". It obviously is a big deal because it's leading to people going to prison. How many people would never find themselves in this horrible spiral if they just obeyed the speed limit? I was driving on the Illinois tollway over the weekend, which is under construction and at a 45mph speed limit. I was in a hurry to meet a client, but I'm at a point in my life where I can't afford the $375 ticket for speeding in a construction zone. So, with people flying around me at 70mph, I set my cruise control to 45. Because the $375 ticket would cripple me financially right now. It's not a hard concept.
    - crazypyro 12y ago
      Right, but that literally has nothing to do with the article. People are also getting tickets for things like not having proof of insurance and expired registrations. Furthermore, the system is set up in such a way of encouraging the police to use predatory tactics to produce revenue. This includes giving tickets for things that most other departments consider not being worth enforcing by tickets. Boiling down the argument to "Don't speed if you can't afford" it adds nothing to conversation and completely misses the point of the article.
imgabe 12y ago
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?
- brudgers 12y ago
  Your question suggests the answer. Jails are very often a revenue source. States and the Federal government often provide funds to build and operate the facilities. Courts impose fees on defendants to cover expenses. And of course there are all sorts monetization schemes that work when people have no options: https://www.google.com/search?q=cost+of+phone+call+from+jail https://www.google.com/search?q=cost+of+phone+call+from+jail http://www.buzzfeed.com/justinesharrock/why-does-it-cost-18-to-make-a-call-from-prison http://www.buzzfeed.com/justinesharrock/why-does-it-cost-18-...
thaumasiotes 12y ago
> 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.
- mikeash 12y ago
  I wonder if there should be a rule that if the police are called out for something, they can't leverage their presence to nab somebody for a crime of lesser severity. If they get called out for domestic abuse and see a freshly-murdered body, obviously they should take care of that. But if they get called out for domestic abuse and find a minor violation of an occupancy permit, maybe they should be required to ignore it.
  - thaumasiotes 12y ago
    This doesn't work very well as a remedy for the problem "civil servants [judges/police/etc.] at low levels don't know what's legal and what's not". Police officers are even routinely given immunity for violating laws they weren't supposed to have known.
    - 12y ago
brps 12y ago
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.
- gizmo686 12y ago
  One of the biggest gifts my parents gave me was the instructions "if you run unexpected trouble and need money, come to us immidietly". Fourtuantly, I have not had to take them up on this, but this type of safety net would prevent a relativly minor cost (like a broken window) from spiraling like it did in your case (as well as allow me to take more risk by having less in savings to pay off debt faster). Of course, this 'advice' only works if you are coming from an upper/middle class family...
- mikeash 12y ago
  What strikes me about this article and your story is that the cost of operating a car safely and legally can be much greater than the bare minimum cost of just operating a car in general. But enforcement of that extra cost is random, leading a lot of people who can't really afford a car (like in your case) to keep operating one anyway, because they really need it. Seems like the problem needs to be attacked from both ends. First, better enforcement to make it clear that you can't keep driving around without a registration, rather than making it look like a gamble each time. Second, better public transportation so that a car is less of a necessity, to give options to those who can't afford to operate one safely. As it is, we're putting people in a situation where they need a car to survive, can't afford to operate one safely and legally, and then randomly and capriciously punish them for it.
mgulaid 12y ago
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.

46 points by mgulaid 12y ago

MrMan 12y ago

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

glibgil 12y ago
I agree that Uber makes the problem of identifying sheltered sycophants a thing of the past.
freehunter 12y ago
Uber will create world peace under the united government of silicon valley, led by our glorious leaders Paul Graham and Marc Andreessen.
dogecoinbase 12y ago
No, I don't think that Uber will solve poverty, the actual cause of these issues.

crazypyro 12y ago

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.

madoublet 12y ago
I live in St. Louis and see cars blow by me everyday going 20+ MPH over the speed limit and weaving in and out of traffic. I am personally glad the cops are there to act as a deterrent.
- mikeash 12y ago
  Doesn't that imply that the deterrent isn't working?
  - madoublet 12y ago
    My experience is anecdotal at best, but it does seem that speeding is less common on roads where there are frequent speed traps.

brown 12y ago

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-130-000-speeding-ticket-article-1.1486072 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/multimillionaire-faces... (edited for clarity)

freehunter 12y ago

>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.

crazypyro 12y ago
Did you read the article? It's much more than just complaining about speeding tickets... Speeding tickets and other small, petty tickets are turning into weeks in jail and thousands in fines, mostly for poor blacks, because of ridiculous city zoning and fragmented court systems.
- freehunter 12y ago
  Yes, I obviously read it since I said "the way they're treated is criminal" and also quoted the article itself. The million little cuts is terrible. But one of the little cuts, which the article makes out to be a very common one, is easily avoided. Don't shrug it off with a "I have a lead foot, it's no big deal". It obviously is a big deal because it's leading to people going to prison. How many people would never find themselves in this horrible spiral if they just obeyed the speed limit? I was driving on the Illinois tollway over the weekend, which is under construction and at a 45mph speed limit. I was in a hurry to meet a client, but I'm at a point in my life where I can't afford the $375 ticket for speeding in a construction zone. So, with people flying around me at 70mph, I set my cruise control to 45. Because the $375 ticket would cripple me financially right now. It's not a hard concept.
  - crazypyro 12y ago
    Right, but that literally has nothing to do with the article. People are also getting tickets for things like not having proof of insurance and expired registrations. Furthermore, the system is set up in such a way of encouraging the police to use predatory tactics to produce revenue. This includes giving tickets for things that most other departments consider not being worth enforcing by tickets. Boiling down the argument to "Don't speed if you can't afford" it adds nothing to conversation and completely misses the point of the article.

imgabe 12y ago

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?

brudgers 12y ago
Your question suggests the answer. Jails are very often a revenue source. States and the Federal government often provide funds to build and operate the facilities. Courts impose fees on defendants to cover expenses. And of course there are all sorts monetization schemes that work when people have no options: https://www.google.com/search?q=cost+of+phone+call+from+jail https://www.google.com/search?q=cost+of+phone+call+from+jail http://www.buzzfeed.com/justinesharrock/why-does-it-cost-18-to-make-a-call-from-prison http://www.buzzfeed.com/justinesharrock/why-does-it-cost-18-...

thaumasiotes 12y ago

> 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.

mikeash 12y ago
I wonder if there should be a rule that if the police are called out for something, they can't leverage their presence to nab somebody for a crime of lesser severity. If they get called out for domestic abuse and see a freshly-murdered body, obviously they should take care of that. But if they get called out for domestic abuse and find a minor violation of an occupancy permit, maybe they should be required to ignore it.
- thaumasiotes 12y ago
  This doesn't work very well as a remedy for the problem "civil servants [judges/police/etc.] at low levels don't know what's legal and what's not". Police officers are even routinely given immunity for violating laws they weren't supposed to have known.
  - 12y ago

brps 12y ago

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.

gizmo686 12y ago
One of the biggest gifts my parents gave me was the instructions "if you run unexpected trouble and need money, come to us immidietly". Fourtuantly, I have not had to take them up on this, but this type of safety net would prevent a relativly minor cost (like a broken window) from spiraling like it did in your case (as well as allow me to take more risk by having less in savings to pay off debt faster). Of course, this 'advice' only works if you are coming from an upper/middle class family...
mikeash 12y ago
What strikes me about this article and your story is that the cost of operating a car safely and legally can be much greater than the bare minimum cost of just operating a car in general. But enforcement of that extra cost is random, leading a lot of people who can't really afford a car (like in your case) to keep operating one anyway, because they really need it. Seems like the problem needs to be attacked from both ends. First, better enforcement to make it clear that you can't keep driving around without a registration, rather than making it look like a gamble each time. Second, better public transportation so that a car is less of a necessity, to give options to those who can't afford to operate one safely. As it is, we're putting people in a situation where they need a car to survive, can't afford to operate one safely and legally, and then randomly and capriciously punish them for it.

mgulaid 12y ago

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.