My brush with TSA

[mjncad]

Amazing...the USA Gummint is worried over a few frakking candy eggs; but look the over way at the invasion of illegal aliens crossing the USA/Mexico border.

I'd say it's a safe bet illegal aliens kill more Americans every day than people die from choking on a candy egg all year.

 

[Soundguy]

yeah.. but it's WAY easir to take away somebodies candy egg when they try to enter the country, than to try to stop dangerous, possibly armed men coing over the border.. i mean.. someone might get hurt doing that..

even wonder why traffic law enforcement is basically the largest part of any police force? 1, it generates money... 2, it generates money, 3, it generates money, 4, it's pretty easy.. set on a road and pll people over and they pay you money. 5, it's WAY harder to investigate a crime that you may not solve, and nobody pays you any money if you do solve it. 6, Investigating a crime like that might put somebody in the way of harm.. moreoften than a traffic stop would.. AND.. nobody pays you any money.

revenue enforcement baby! that's what it's all about.. the money-go-round.

soundguy

 

[Bird]

yeah.. but it's WAY easir to take away somebodies candy egg when they try to enter the country, than to try to stop dangerous, possibly armed men coing over the border.. i mean.. someone might get hurt doing that..

even wonder why traffic law enforcement is basically the largest part of any police force? 1, it generates money... 2, it generates money, 3, it generates money, 4, it's pretty easy.. set on a road and pll people over and they pay you money. 5, it's WAY harder to investigate a crime that you may not solve, and nobody pays you any money if you do solve it. 6, Investigating a crime like that might put somebody in the way of harm.. moreoften than a traffic stop would.. AND.. nobody pays you any money.

revenue enforcement baby! that's what it's all about.. the money-go-round.

soundguy

Yep, it generates money, sometimes even as much money as the traffic enforcement costs. And stopping traffic violators also sometimes results in arrests for other crimes, not to mention the fact that there are usually more people killed by traffic violators than are murdered by any other means.

 

[Soundguy]

i wasn't implying that there weren't tangible side benefits of traffic enforcement, other than the revenue generation.. and if you have the option of 2-3 different types of law enforcement activities, and oe pays or nearly pays for itself, and the others don't.. sounds like an easy choice.

also remember that I live in florida.. and we have 2 municipalities that make up the bulk of their ENTIRE town operating fund off of traffic enforcement. not just law engforcement fund.. but the entire general budget for the township.. now that's doin bidness


soundguy

 

[TripleR]

yeah.. but it's WAY easir to take away somebodies candy egg when they try to enter the country, than to try to stop dangerous, possibly armed men coing over the border.. i mean.. someone might get hurt doing that..

even wonder why traffic law enforcement is basically the largest part of any police force? 1, it generates money... 2, it generates money, 3, it generates money, 4, it's pretty easy.. set on a road and pull people over and they pay you money. 5, it's WAY harder to investigate a crime that you may not solve, and nobody pays you any money if you do solve it. 6, Investigating a crime like that might put somebody in the way of harm.. more often than a traffic stop would.. AND.. nobody pays you any money.

revenue enforcement baby! that's what it's all about.. the money-go-round.

soundguy

That is a generalization, I would never make.

 

[Soundguy]

That is a generalization, I would never make.

really? you don't think it's easier to confiscate a candy egg vs.. say.. tracking down a criminal on the run.

just looking at the facts.. I can't see how it is anything other than that.

mind you i'm not saying law enforcement is only looking for easy jobs or the easy way out.. remember.. this was in response to another post that lamented the fact that there was time to stop candy egg importers.. vs other crimes..

heck.. you do what you can.. and if some of the 'can' is easier or more lucrative.. well.. there you have it.

soundguy

soundguy

 

[Bird]

i wasn't implying that there weren't tangible side benefits of traffic enforcement, other than the revenue generation.. and if you have the option of 2-3 different types of law enforcement activities, and oe pays or nearly pays for itself, and the others don't.. sounds like an easy choice.

also remember that I live in florida.. and we have 2 municipalities that make up the bulk of their ENTIRE town operating fund off of traffic enforcement. not just law engforcement fund.. but the entire general budget for the township.. now that's doin bidness


soundguy

Chris, I know that has happened where traffic citations finance the community. IF all those cited were guilty, and if the fines were of a uniform amount, I'd have no problem with it, but it really can be bad. For that reason, Texas has a state statute that prevents that. Cities can take in all the traffic fine money they want, but if it goes over a certain percentage of their budget, they have to send the surplus to the state. That stopped a lot of little towns from having "Speed Traps".

The other thing that I think most people really don't realize is how much most police officers hate traffic enforcement. They get accused of having a quota, and again, that has happened, but pretty rarely. However, most (not all, of course) officers hate issuing traffic citations. And I'm talking about nationwide, as well as some other countries. You meet a lot of nice people who made a mistake and most officers would rather not issue them a citation, but the only experiments I've known of indicate that "warnings" actually do little, if any, good.

When I started on the police department, there was no "quota" as such, but every 10 days, the sergeants had to review their troops' "activity"; i.e., add up the citations issued and people put in jail, and average the numbers. The low guys on those numbers were called in for "counseling" and their next 6 month numerical performance rating might be lowered, if they consistently stayed low. And those performance ratings were part of your final score if you tried for promotion.

 

[ultrarunner]

An acquaintance of mine was on the force for many years... he was in the traffic division and consistently wrote more tickets than anyone past or present.

He knew the code forwards and back and said he could write a citation to just about anyone going down the road.

Didn't make him popular with the public... he was very popular with admin because of the revenue generated and his professional demeanor avoided successful challenges. If there ever was a definition of command presence... he was it.

This is a side note of how he was hired...

The city had a thousand marchers protesting and looting... even burned a squad car... the downtown was cordoned off.

The officer then a private, was just stationed at a local base in the motor-pool and didn't have a clue about the unrest... his commanding officer dispatched him to make a urgent delivery to another installation and en-route he got caught up in the riot...

The city police chief got word and was thinking this is all I need to make a bad situation worse... the idea he had called out the marines or that news would show picture of the jeep in flames...

The soldier, surrounded by about 25 rioters would not surrender his vehicle... he said that he didn't want to hurt anyone, but, anyone attempting to commandeer his vehicle would suffer severe consequences...

Anyway, the Police Chief was very impressed with the young man and said, "If you ever want a job as an officer in my city... look me up when you get out..." and this is exactly what he did...

 

[Soundguy]

yep.. we have 2 places that had been labeled speed traps by AAA here in fl. I think lawtey is our current AAA designated speed trap. before that we had a couple others like mcintosh and one I can't put my finger on the name. it's at the tip of my tounge.

I'm actually PRO law enforcement.. IE.. bringinh in the criminals. things liek 'simple' speeding where there was no accident and no damage involved.. I'd be in favor of a fee system that didn't penalize you in other ways.. like points for instance. those have long reachin penalties.

I guess I'm in the small percentage group.

a warning goes a long way with me..

soundguy

 

[Bird]

Chris, another thing that's happened is the judicial system. I lived in Oklahoma until I was almost 17. Then in Texas. Traffic cases initiated by county and state officers went to Justice of the Peace courts in both states. Fine money was supposed to be sent to the state and "court costs" were assessed by the JP and that was his pay. If the arrested, or cited, person was found not guilty, the JP didn't make a nickel, so you can guess how many "not guilty" decisions were handed down.

Unfortunately, I had paid a fine twice to a JP in Texas, and when I applied to the police department, I listed those on the application, but there was no record of them. In other words, the JP kept both the fine and the court costs; never sent anything to the state. Whether that money was shared with the officers, I have no idea.

Eventually, Oklahoma solved that problem by eliminating the office of Justice of the Peace, and Texas at least partially solved it by putting the JPs on a salary, based on the population of their precinct.