<story><title>Police in tiny Alabama town suck drivers into legal ‘black hole’</title><url>https://www.al.com/news/2022/01/police-in-this-tiny-alabama-town-suck-drivers-into-legal-black-hole.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Bhilai</author><text>In the town I live in, the police has decided to not to respond to nonemergency calls. They put the blame on their budget being cut and #defundthepolice movement. As it turns out some smart reporters looked up numbers and the budget was reduced in 2020 but it was increased back significantly in 2021.&lt;p&gt;Anecdotally, I see a constable car hiding near a stop sign close to my home almost everyday and ticketing people who do a rolling stop. How they prioritize pulling people over actually responding to incidents is beyond me.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ASalazarMX</author><text>&amp;gt; How they prioritize pulling people over actually responding to incidents is beyond me.&lt;p&gt;To be honest, we all know it&amp;#x27;s because traffic fines are risk-free income, while chasing actual criminals is an expense. The invisible hand of the Free Market(tm) optimizes for income instead of effectiveness, because police departments don&amp;#x27;t have competition.</text></comment>
<story><title>Police in tiny Alabama town suck drivers into legal ‘black hole’</title><url>https://www.al.com/news/2022/01/police-in-this-tiny-alabama-town-suck-drivers-into-legal-black-hole.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Bhilai</author><text>In the town I live in, the police has decided to not to respond to nonemergency calls. They put the blame on their budget being cut and #defundthepolice movement. As it turns out some smart reporters looked up numbers and the budget was reduced in 2020 but it was increased back significantly in 2021.&lt;p&gt;Anecdotally, I see a constable car hiding near a stop sign close to my home almost everyday and ticketing people who do a rolling stop. How they prioritize pulling people over actually responding to incidents is beyond me.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>manuelabeledo</author><text>Sounds like Austin.&lt;p&gt;City council approved an increase in taxes, and used part of it to raise the APD budget [1]. This didn&amp;#x27;t translate into a more effective force, and the perception among citizens is that police has given up on misdemeanors or infractions.&lt;p&gt;Incidentally, one of my neighbours is an officer, and his major complaints are the lack of new recruits, which is odd since that is ultimately the department responsibility, and the inability to charge people with possession of weed, since the city has effectively decriminalise it.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.kut.org&amp;#x2F;austin&amp;#x2F;2021-08-12&amp;#x2F;austin-passes-4-5-billion-budget-increases-police-budget-per-state-law&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.kut.org&amp;#x2F;austin&amp;#x2F;2021-08-12&amp;#x2F;austin-passes-4-5-bill...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>