DiogenesTheWiser
Well-Known Member
https://harvardlawreview.org/2015/04/policing-and-profit/
From Harvard Law Review--with the states having less revenue from taxpayers (thanks to state-level GOP taxation policies), and coupled with the financial downturn that began in 2007-08, local communities receive less support from the states. Moreover, property taxes are down across the board, especially since the 2009-10 foreclosures, meaning townships, towns, and cities have less and less money coming in. They have to get that money coming in some way, and many American communities have just made the local police defacto tax collectors.
And here's the rub: these armed, blue-uniformed defacto tax collectors mostly go after poorer people, especially southern African Americans. They pull them over, and then start fishing for a bunch of violations, hoping the black person will act out and then the cop can kill them or (better for local coffers) arrest them, jail then, and then fine them (and there's all those fees one must pay just to bond out of jail). All of that goes to local coffers.
So why are American cops so aggressive? Because of GOP tax-cutting and tax abatement policies. In Louisiana, e.g., the state government pays taxes to Big Oil and Halliburton. And then Louisiana cops have to make up the loss of that revenue by pulling people over and shaking them down. Can't fight the cops in Louisiana--very few affordable attorneys have the balls to do that.
From Harvard Law Review--with the states having less revenue from taxpayers (thanks to state-level GOP taxation policies), and coupled with the financial downturn that began in 2007-08, local communities receive less support from the states. Moreover, property taxes are down across the board, especially since the 2009-10 foreclosures, meaning townships, towns, and cities have less and less money coming in. They have to get that money coming in some way, and many American communities have just made the local police defacto tax collectors.
And here's the rub: these armed, blue-uniformed defacto tax collectors mostly go after poorer people, especially southern African Americans. They pull them over, and then start fishing for a bunch of violations, hoping the black person will act out and then the cop can kill them or (better for local coffers) arrest them, jail then, and then fine them (and there's all those fees one must pay just to bond out of jail). All of that goes to local coffers.
So why are American cops so aggressive? Because of GOP tax-cutting and tax abatement policies. In Louisiana, e.g., the state government pays taxes to Big Oil and Halliburton. And then Louisiana cops have to make up the loss of that revenue by pulling people over and shaking them down. Can't fight the cops in Louisiana--very few affordable attorneys have the balls to do that.
