CityLab, October 21, 2019: The Link Between Race and Traffic Tickets
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the last time I got a speeding ticket. It was nearly a decade ago and it’s a pretty unremarkable story: I was on my way back to Columbus, Ohio, from a friend’s wedding and was going something like 15 mph over the speed limit. An officer pulled me over, asked me if I knew why he did, walked back to his squad car and returned with a ticket for $90.
At the time, I didn’t think much about it. I was 22, I was speeding, and that is what happened when you got caught. I didn’t consider the motives of the officer, his law enforcement agency or the financial status of the city he worked for. And I definitely didn’t consider the fact that I was a brown man driving through rural Ohio.
But now that I’m a scholar of public finance, it’s all I can think about. My recent research—and that of others—shows that communities with more residents of color are more likely to rely on revenue coming from traffic tickets and other minor fines.
