Ok, well my position has been that speeding tickets are simply a supplemental form of taxation; all it requires is a paradigm shift to a historical context. I have definitely made a number of other assertions in this thread--I did think there was a much more direct relationship between ticket revenue and a PD's budget. It's been like that in almost every society since humans started writing things down, so that was a pretty safe assumption which I was mistaken on.
With respect to this question:
Let's say your fantasyland where police do not issue tickets was reality, what is the deterrent to commit crime that is not severe enough for jailtime?
I have not argued that tickets should not be issued and that financial punishments are ineffectual, but I will answer it anyway because there are literally limitless potential solutions, and the very question shows not only a lack of creativity, but an uncritical acceptance of several assumptions which time and again have proven unfounded…and that’s what makes it a good question because the sentiment is hardly unique to people who have not studied this or had first-hand experience. It’s like supposing corporal punishment is the only way to influence your child’s behavior. It’s the most immediate way, but it’s not the best way, and a lot of people would consider overuse poor parenting or abuse.
The shortest answer though is something like using speed governors beyond something like 85 mph, adapting punishments to more productive things such as community service (which for a person whose time is worth a lot would be a more effective deterrent by the board’s logic anyway), and issuing something like a tax credit to people who are not cited because rewards are always better methods of influencing and internalizing behavior than punishments would be some offhand ideas, and I’m not getting paid to do this or have an education in it. Pretty sure all new cars have little black boxes just like planes, so you can check compliance with a high degree of accuracy if you wanted to and such automation would also be more efficient and fair than current policing. Start up costs could be funded by heavily revamping the current criminal “justice” system, starting with the PD. Anyway this is going to have to be my answer in lieu of a better researched strategy because it’s not worth the time unless I’m speaking to an audience that can be influenced.
As far as the idea that police do not judge people, once you realize and accept that an individual’s actions are inherently judgemental, the argument does not make sense. The inverse is actually true, as police have the
widest latitude for action of any of the bureaucrats in the process, whereas a judge, for example, is bound by sentencing guidelines. The police officer judged that the individual needed to go to court in the first place. Sometimes a LEOs hands are tied, but in general the defense that they are just doing their job are are thus absolved of responsibility is not only incorrect, but contrary to the principals which underlied the Nuremburg Trials. This is the definition of street level bureaucrat as per Wikipedia:
Street-level bureaucracy is the subset of a public agency or government institution containing the individuals who carry out and enforce the actions required by laws and public policies. Street-level bureaucracy is accompanied by the idea that these individuals vary the extents to which they enforce the rules and laws assigned to them [emphasis mine].
From the article:
A 2003 American study, conducted by Steven Maynard Moody of the University of Kansas, reiterated [emphasis mine] the significance of street-level bureaucrats in the political process, asserting that street-level workers "actually make policy choices rather than simply implement the decisions of elected officials."
So it’s clear the act of policing itself is intrinsically judgmental. What’s upsetting is I have not said even one thing to The Pit posters that isn’t taught in an introductory sociology class. That’s how ignorant people are about something that is this important (and maybe that is the issue right there. It’s apparently NOT important, and that in itself is largely a value judgement). From the notion that tickets = taxation to the idea that punishment is an ineffectual means of behavior correction, I have not written one revolutionary thing in any post I’ve made.
All that said, I have brought up many anecdotes in the course of the thread which I did not start out intending to discuss, but those things are actual facts, not the generalizations you see in books (and much easier to cite as well). None of that was intended to be whining. I was seriously just trying to tell some people some things. Whether those things are representative or not is what we do not agree on. But you all can’t completely reject that there is a problem, or that reward is superior to punishment for modeling animal behavior. TAB's own argument undermines itself--if everyone speeds anyway then how is that not a broken system? It is apparently news that secret courts and police are bending the laws behind your backs in the name of the (supposed) greater good, but it's hardly news to minorities and poor people, because its been done openly since the beginning of time.
If police want to wield this sort of power over people, they at least need to be aware of these dynamics.
Criminal justice as a whole is is fatally flawed in the US, and I should think will be implemented very differently as human society evolves so long as reformists can continue to criticize it.