The US spends a lot on jails, and many jails charge cities and states a minimum occupancy penalty if they're not filled. Seriously. And then Covid dropped the prison population by 157,000 people.
https://eji.org/news/private-prison-quotas-drive-mass-incarceration/
I've told you before that Black folk mainly get pulled over for systemic racism, not interpersonal. Court fee revenues are a lot, and traffic ticket revenues are approx $14B a year.
https://taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/five-facts-about-fines-and-fees-revenues
Some small cities like Ferguson Missouri get 23% of their city revenue from these tickets and fines. This doesn't only happen to Black drivers, but it disproportionately happens to Black drivers.
https://finesandfeesjusticecenter.org/articles/dismantling-policing-for-profit-how-to-build-on-missouris-post-ferguson-court-reforms/
Many of these local criminal justice departments and city governments nationwide were worried that they were about to go bankrupt during the pandemic, because there was so little traffic, and so few Black motorists and families to prey upon, that their revenues dropped. Just like public transportation revenues dropped. And bar and restaurant revenue dropped. And drug store revenues dropped.
https://www.dcfpi.org/all/raising-revenue-through-fines-and-fees-is-unsound-and-unsafe/
The thing that Biden rescued most with his "American Rescue Plan," cop fund diversion stunt, is this awful, racist, predatory criminal justice system. This money covered these local government budget shortfalls, as well as expansion of more policing.
As we can see now, the "crime spike" was a lie. And they knew it was a lie at the time. Like Black folk have said, police don't do what you think they do. By time, by number of arrests, most of what police do (~80%) is giving tickets and fines to poor people, disproportionately Black, and arresting them for low level offenses, creating court fees and prison revenue.
https://www.vera.org/publications/arrest-trends-every-three-seconds-landing/arrest-trends-every-three-seconds/findings
We keep up the pretense of crime waves, to keep this wealth extraction from Black folk going. Because local governments are financially dependent on it. Because they don't want to tax rich people.
You might think that "Biden had no control over local governments." But Biden himself, even as a senator, bragged about how much control he had over how local governments spend their criminal justice money, and set policy, even though it was on paper only a federal bill. So please don't argue with me on this point. Argue with Biden himself.
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