Study: Economy Down, Citations Up
Written for kvia.com by Anchor/Reporter Stephanie Valle
EL PASO, TX — A study finds that when the economy goes down, the number of tickets issued by local police goes up.
The study, called “Red Ink in the Rearview Mirror,” was published in February in the Journal of Law and Economics. It examined 14 years of data from 96 counties in North Carolina.
The research shows traffic tickets go up significantly when local government revenue falls.
ABC-7 obtained the statistics showing traffic citations from the start of the recession in November 2008 to January 2009. In November, police cited 21,530 drivers for moving violations. Officers issued more tickets in December (22,675). In January, police issued 24,366 tickets.
“It’s important to remember that the issuance of a citation is at the discretion of that individual officer,” says Javier Sambrano, Spokesman for El Paso Police Department. Sambrano added that it is illegal in the state of Texas to have ticket quotas.
El Paso garnered $25 million dollars in paid traffic fines in 2008. More than half of that stays in the city and goes into the general fund, which pays for police and fire department functions and parks, among other programs.
Despite the large sum of money generated by citations, the police spokesman denies that officers use their ticket pad to boost the city’s coffers.
“There’s different things that do happen,”says Sambrano.
“Citations do go up, and there’s also periods where citations really do go down. It all depends on what is happening out there in the street.”
Sambrano says some possible reasons behind the jump in traffic citations are operations that placed beefed-up patrols at international ports of entry and the increase of population in the city limits.
