How segregation led to speed traps, traffic tickets and distrust outside St. Louis

[applegrove]

How segregation led to speed traps, traffic tickets and distrust outside St. Louis

By Max Ehrenfreund at the Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/11/26/how-segregation-led-to-speed-traps-traffic-tickets-and-distrust-outside-st-louis/

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Ferguson, Missouri, collects around $2 million annually in fines and fees, mostly from traffic tickets -- a 44 percent increase from three years ago, the city's annual budget shows.

According to data compiled by Better Together, an economic-development group in St. Louis, fines for speeding and other violations account for more than 14 percent of Ferguson's municipal revenue. The town of 21,203 is too small and too poor to support itself with taxes, so police help the city's bottom line by ticketing drivers aggressively, say advocates of local reform.

Ferguson's finances -- which are typical of cities in St. Louis County -- are ultimately a legacy of decades of racial segregation, according to Better Together's Marius Johnson.

What does Jim Crow have to do with traffic tickets? Decades ago, Johnson explained, whites formed little towns by the dozen in order to avoid sharing schools and public services with blacks.




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