Many towns on the east coast have “police benevolent societies” and they ask for donations around Christmas. A decent donation gets you a sticker that goes nicely on your driver side window. This helps the officer understand you weren’t clear on the law and will do better next time.
I owned a small retail business in an east coast city for a while, and it was made clear to me that if I didn't donate to the benevolent society, any needed police assistance could be less than forthcoming.
Does it have to be so sinister? Were you a trooper doing speed enforcement, what would you care whether someone give fifty bucks three years ago to your agency's own union, or the FOP? If you are like other union members I've known, you might resent your union for not sticking their neck out for you enough, or for negotiating a weaker contract whatever you had before you unionize, overpromising and underdelivering and so on, the first thing secured during a contract negotiation being automatic dues deductions from your paycheck. Or maybe you like the union, but the "optics" of these stickers is not doing rank and file police any favors, mainly just the often AFL-CIO-affiliated unions themselves.
So Billy BMW clocks in at a brisk but almost reasonable 120mph as he was at least using his turn signals, you chase him down, you "light him up," then you see a union supporter sticker, would that sticker more likely than not work to his advantage with your discretion, because he may have kicked in a few bucks, or by the time you began interacting with this person, wouldn't other things, like his pulling far enough over to minimize your exposure to traffic and so on, matter more? These stickers offer utility not limited to bids for latitude, including political statements, that yes I think the police union, the most vilified institution in the US, is worth defending, and at the risk of getting my car keyed I will stick it on and hope others give money too. Another utility perhaps, maybe it's a signal to cops that, when they pull you over, run your plate and see that you have a CCW permit, that if you concern yourself in any way with police unions, you might be a little more likely not to try to shoot your way out of a ticket as you decide with how much caution you need to approach.
Besides, I routinely see people with these stickers and emblems and thin blue line things driving way too slow. Perhaps they like I do feel that there has been a war on police and it is a thing to push back on, on a flag mast on one's house, in Thanksgiving dinner table arguments, and yes, the bumper of one's car.
Honestly I buy one every year. Live in a fairly small town in north Jersey. Most cars have the sticker. Never in my life been pulled over. It’s a stupid racket but wth am I going to do to change it? Play my $250 a year I guess.
As an outsider, it is a bit incredible how the USA institutionalised corruption in many tiers of their society. I live in a notoriously corrupt third world country, but many examples of corruption that come to mind are similar present in the USA, the only difference being that in the USA it is not considered corruption, done in the open.
I agree in spirit, but will note that “not yet legislated against or legally challenged and subsequently declared corruption” and “not considered corruption” are distinct. For example, many consider lobbying— people or organizations donating money to anything from political parties to individual politician’s election funds to promote policy— for example, blatant corruption even though it’s legal without blatant quid-pro-quo. Often these lobbyists get access to the politicians at lavish industry-funded conferences at luxury resorts.
People make a big deal about political checks and balances in our government but that doesn’t do shit for general accountability. When most have their hand in the cookie jar, what’s the likelihood anyone could close it?
Yet another manifestation of how humans do not scale; as soon as any human population reaches the point of individuals being able to view other members as anonymous, fairness is skirted, social order breaks down, and police and laws are required. We need to focus on this aspects, this treatment of anonymous as deserving less than fair to be our Achilles' heel, our fundamental failure preventing our societies and our progress from forward fair movement.
Um, this is discussing a systematic recreation of the system of nepotism that plagues smaller communities where size is insufficient to have anonymity and therefore "accidents" like ticketing the sheriff's wife.
I know what the situation is; I stand by the assertion that any police officer, whose job is to enforce the law unilaterally, is exhibiting preference for an insider club, which is a breakdown of empathy towards larger society. They see no ethical problem with their practice, because the anonymous other is fair game to violate.
As a non-american this is ridiculous, and I want more details. What crimes do they cover? Just traffic? Or can I going shoplifting? Or settle a score with someone?
As someone who has one, only minor traffic violations. And only in certain places (cops not in the northeast generally are not unionized and dont honor them. ) It's not a get out of jail free card like it's being described.
You can buy PBA cards on eBay, as the article suggests, but when you use it you have to explain to the officer how you got it.
The barrier for these cards is low in NY, but get out of jail free cards can be found everywhere.
In CA a minimum annual donation of $25k will get you a special license plate (for one car) that effectively serves the same purpose with one exception. It’s multi use.
Cops typically confiscate your PBA card when you use it.
Here in MA, there is a special "State Police Association" plate you can get, that has an image of a state trooper's hat and the words "Protect and Serve" on it. It costs an extra $40 every two years and proceeds go to the State Police Benevolent fund.
As a police officer in the UK, you try and pull this shit here you're most definitely getting fined, and then we're going to have an unpleasant conversation about perverting the course of justice.
Gotta ask: why haven't you all received the memo about Auditing Britain yet?
Great fun for the audience, but it can't be that hard to stop yourselves looking like a bigger bunch of *s than what some people may think?
It’s an efficiency measure so that cops don’t have to spend time “fixing” tickets when they learn after the fact that the person was a family member or close friend of a fellow cop./s
within my first week of working for the city of new york one of the police detectives assigned to my agency gave me one of these cards with the disclaimer of "don't pull it out if you are committing a felony, it won't work" but lesser offenses seemed fair game (never had to use it).
