Last year, this Texas town’s 12 police officers pulled over 8,100 motorists — more than 600 per officer. It is one of 21 cities where officers stopped an average of more than 500 drivers each.
have said recently they faced consequences if they didn’t cite enough drivers for traffic violations.
Lawmakers have tried to rein in the practice. Towns with populations less than 5,000 are prohibited from using radar on the state’s biggest highways. Municipalities that generate more than 20 percent of their annual revenue from speed enforcement must report their earnings to the state comptroller. If the proportion rises above 30 percent, the extra must be turned over to the state.
article in the lobby of his small department’s headquarters about the town’s traffic fatality rate, one of the highest in Texas. Skeptics say data in Texas over the past decade tells a different story. Scott Henson, researcher for the criminal justice nonprofit Just Liberty, argued that major population increases and miles driven over the past decade — coupled with radical reductions in police enforcement in recent years — have had no significant impact on crashes or fatalities.
A Houston Chronicle analysis showed that there are 21 Texas cities where officers stopped an average of more than 500 drivers each in a year.With fines and surcharges, a traffic ticket “often results in a lot of people in poverty getting stuck in this cycle of debt and jail and the inability to drive legally — often for years,” said Chris Harris of the nonprofit public interest justice center Texas Appleseed.
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