Ferguson is what happens when you run a police force as a profit-making business – Quartz
▻http://qz.com/356013/ferguson-is-what-happens-when-you-run-a-police-force-as-a-profit-making-business
▻https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/ferguson-racial-economics.jpg?w=1600
The US Department of Justice investigation into civil rights violations (...) depicts the police and courts as a gang, expropriating money from the city’s black population—with revenue collection as the driving force behind racial discrimination.
Attorney General Eric Holder said there was not sufficient evidence to prove that officer Darren Wilson had willfully committed a civil rights violation when he shot and killed Michael Brown, but that city officials routinely violated citizens’ rights to free speech, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, and equal treatment under the law.
(…) Officers sometimes write six, eight, or, in at least one instance, fourteen citations for a single encounter. [s]ome compete to see who can issue the largest number of citations during a single stop. (...)
This was driven by the city’s desire to use criminal fines as an increasingly large part of its budget, seeking increases in fine revenue of more 30% year over year—not exactly the sign of a functioning criminal-justice system. In 2015, these fines are expected to make up almost a quarter of the city’s general fund, some $3.09 million.
#police #répression #racisme #gang
(& voir le dernier roman de Spinrad)