Profit motive: When your local government is addicted to fines.

Speed traps through small towns in rural parts of the country are a phenomenon as old as car traffic itself. But today this form of predatory policing has become endemic in some jurisdictions. How big is the problem? Fines “account for more than 10 percent of general fund revenues in nearly 600 U.S. jurisdictions. In at least 284 of those governments, it’s more than 20 percent.”

See the full article at GOVERNING.