The city of Los Angeles’ traffic enforcement division use to generate $20 million of net income. For the past five years, fines from parking tickets generated over $617 million for …
After the killing of Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, the Department of Justice (DOJ) found Ferguson’s focus on generating revenue over public safety, along with racial …
Many state revenue policies are rooted in racist history and continue to worsen racial inequities and harm public safety. For example, the white supremacist group, the Redeemers, took political power …
Small towns in Texas are using aggressive ticketing strategies on speeding drivers to raise revenue for their budgets. The Houston Chronicle analyzed traffic stop and ticketing numbers reported to the …
The OmniBase Failure to Appear Program places holds on license renewals (making it an offense to drive) when the license holder fails to pay fines and fees or fails to …
The Washington Post analyzed patterns of moving violations from red light cameras, parking tickets and police stops between 2016 and 2021 in the District of Columbia. The article highlights findings …
In the first-ever study of failure-to-pay suspensions in the United States, researchers Sian Mughan and Joanna Carroll examined a sample of over 2000 drivers who received traffic tickets in Marion …
The imposition of court debt began in the 1960s and became more prominent in the 1980s through fines, fees, costs, assessments, asset forfeiture, and restitution. States and municipalities have come …
Traffic enforcement and policing have become intertwined as a gateway for funneling overpoliced and marginalized communities into the criminal justice system. This article explores a new legal framework that decouples …
This report explores the problematic reliance on fine and fee revenue by examining the relationship between local courts, fine and fee revenues, and municipal finances. The author collected and reviewed …