Peirspictiochtai Ar An Saol
Zero-Based Law Enforcement
Part Three
Law enforcement officers using Revenue Source as their practice focus on ways to generate funds – revenue – for a specific governmental entity or entities. With this practice, the priority is raising money. Not necessarily solving the underlying problem or stopping future similar situations.
An example of this practice is a "speed trap." Typically, speed traps are set up on specific sections of roadways where law enforcement officials recognize that many people drive their motor vehicles at speeds above the legal limits.
These sections of roadways can vary from a street that travels the length of a large hill to an avenue with a low speed limit in a congested area that opens to a straight-line road with the same low speed limit.
In these examples, law enforcement officers will station themselves at the bottom of the large hill or within a short distance of where the congestion ends and the straight-line road opens up to traffic.
The officers then make note of the motor vehicles speeding – color and make of vehicle, for example – and radio that information to other officers stationed a short distance away. It is the second group of law enforcement officers who stop the motor vehicles that were driven above the speed limits.
In this manner, the people driving down the large hill and the people driving out of the congested area are less likely to realize that they are being watched as they break the law until they see other motor vehicles ahead of them being pulled over by the second group of officers.
The result?
Revenue generation can be at its peak for those specific sections of roadway.
If only one group of law enforcement officers was being utilized, the drivers of many of the motor vehicles would slow down as they saw law enforcement activity in front of them. Fewer drivers would get stopped by law enforcement officers, and, thus, less revenue would be generated for the governmental entity or entities.
Local folks familiar with this type of law enforcement activity in specific areas would likely drive their motor vehicles at or below the speed limits in these specific areas.
People from outside the area and not familiar with the law enforcement activity along specific roadways would be more likely to violate the speed limits and, thus, be the main source of revenue from this type of law enforcement activity.
With fewer local people affected by this type of law enforcement and most people affected being from outside the area, the governmental entity or entities involved would have few incentives to stop this type of revenue generation by law enforcement.
In fact, the governmental entity or entities may see this approach of generating revenue from non-locals as preferable to raising taxes on local folks.
Keep in mind that this approach of law enforcement officers using Revenue Source as their practice – issuing traffic tickets to people driving down a large hill or out of a congested area – may not make the roads in the local community any safer.
Not safer for other drivers.
Not safer for pedestrians.
Not safer to reduce property damage.
In fact, this practice may be best found in areas where traffic accidents, pedestrian injuries and deaths, and property damage is minimal or non-existent.
Remember.
The goal is not necessarily solving the underlying problem or stopping future similar situations.
The priority is raising money.
To best be able to understand Zero-Based Law Enforcement, the next news columns in this series will continue by focusing on specific characteristics of law enforcement as it is practiced today in much of the United States, with the next news column itself focused on the overall practice of Targeted Arrests for Prosecution in Law Enforcement.
Peirspictiochtai Ar A Saol – Gaelic – Irish – for "Perspectives On Life" is a column focused on aspects of accountability and responsibility as well as ways people look at life.
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