Chicago's Real Organized Crime Problem

Chicago is crooked, as everyone knows.  If you want to visit a true "den of iniquity," go to a Chicago courtroom.  It seems injustice trickles down to the lowest level of justice - in this case, parking tickets. 

According to the Chicago Tribune, the city earns approximately $210 million by writing parking tickets.   (Via Overlawyered).  That Chicago vigorously enforces its traffic and parking laws is not itself a cause for concern.  What is a cause of concern is this:

James Reilly, head of the Department of Administrative Hearings, which handles about 275,000 appeals every year from motorists cited for non-moving violations, said that more than 50 percent of those who contest parking citations are found not liable after hearing officers consider the evidence.

"Those numbers have been consistent for 10 years, and the numbers don't lie," Reilly said. "Most people who contest a parking ticket prevail ... and if people do not agree with the decision of the administrative law officer, they have the ability to appeal to the Circuit Court."

Of course, this statistic is cited as proof that "the system works."  (This is what death-penalty advocates say when someone is spared from death row 30 seconds before being killed by the state.)  Heck, half the people who are issued a parking infraction are cleared.

Of course, the real problem is this: Why are 50% of people who are given tickets falsely accused?  How can a system that falsely charges 50% of motorists be considered fair or just?

I suppose we could say that people who are more likely to be innocent of a parking infraction challenge their tickets.  Hence, there is no 50% error rate.  The real "error rate" is likely smaller.  Fair enough.  This still means that Chicago writes 137,500 wrongful infractions a month. 

One-hundred and thirty-seven thousand bogus tickets a year.  Every year.  At an average of $50 a ticket, this means the city of Chicago attempts to steal $6,875, 000 from innocent motorists.  This is attempted theft, plain and simple.

If a corporation engaged in conduct that involved cheating over 137,500 people each year, there would be an outcry.  There would be calls for prosecution.  The Department of Justice would be on the case.  There would be perp walks.

If a group of Italian Americans attempted to extort seven-million dollars from people each year, they'd be call a family.

But since it's a city that is stealing and attempting to steal from innocent people, everyone will ignore this as simply politics as usual.

Comments

[markm]

It's not just that Chicago attempts to cheat 137,500 people out of $50 each, but it probably costs most of over $100 in lost work time to contest the ticket. (Which makes the theory that it's only the guilty ones that just pay up highly suspect, too.)

OTOH, are these people winning because the tickets are really invalid, or because the officer doesn't show up to testify, the driver spoke something other than standard English and no interpreter was present, etc.? (I once accompanied a gentleman from El Salvador who'd been driving without insurance to court in Manassas, VA. I asked for an interpreter simply because with his limited English and my non-existent Spanish I hadn't been able to explain car insurance to him. No interpreter available, case dismissed.)

The real problem is sovereign immunity and the various other immunities that legislators and courts have allowed to government officials. If upon winning a case in traffic court, one was immediately awarded all one's costs, no city could afford sloppy practices in ticketing, or to allow officers to blow off court dates.

[AntonK]

I think there's another reason that X percentage of people who show up in court over parking tickets are found not liable for those tickets: police officers almost never show up in court to contest the citizen's assertion, so the court simply finds the citizen not guilty and off they go (even if, say, they were parked illegaly)

The above is what I've heard from people who get lots of tickets, and actually have the time to show up in court and contest them.

[Aaron]

Not that it would make your interpretation much better, but that's an annual figure.

What proof is necessary to succeed in an appeal? Without knowing more about the appeals process, it's hard to evaluate whether the problem is that huge numbers of tickets are inappropriately issued, or that parking enforcement officers frequently fail to respond to requests for information received from the Department of Administrative Hearings when an appeal is filed. Also, if people "in the know" know that there's a fifty percent chance of dismissal of a ticket, whatever the merit of the objection, the system can easily become swamped.

[Windypundit]

Mike, you are over-excited about this. By a factor of 12. The figure of 275,000 is the annual number of appeals. They're not stealing as much as you think.

Thank you nevertheless for your righteous anger on behalf of those of us who drive in Chicago.

Note that Reilly is being disingenuous when he says "...if people do not agree with the decision of the administrative law officer, they have the ability to appeal to the Circuit Court." How many people are going to appeal a $50 parking ticket when the non-refundable court filing fee is $93?

[Mike]

Nice catch on the error.

Even if that's all they are doing each year, that's a lot of attempted theft.

The $93 filing fee deters people from contesting their tickets. Imagine how many more motorists would appeal (and win) if there weren't such a huge filing fee?

Atrocious.

[Aaron]

The cost of the initial appeal is what? The time it takes to write up the administrative challenge plus a postage stamp. If I lived in a community where the success rate on appeal were 50% and I could afford the stamp, I might be inclined to "flip the coin".

I remain interested in learning why 50% of administrative challenges succeed - is it in fact the result of actual, individualized findings that the tickets were issued in error, or are other factors involved, such as the failure of officers to respond to a challenge or their inability to recall specific details after-the-fact - before ascribing this to "corruption".

[Mike]

such as the failure of officers to respond to a challenge or their inability to recall specific details after-the-fact

This strikes me as highly unlikely - because it would mean ticket issuers are able to remember 50% of all tickets issued. "Oh, yeah, the white car parked under the tree on Maple Lane." Which would require an extraordinary memory.

I do agree that a further investigation is warranted.

[Hamilton]

The issue is... when people decide to fight tickets in court, the prosecuting attorney usually just throws out the charges. The court system is bogged down and they don't have the time to sit through every single ticket. Most people just pay without showing up. Some people hire lawyers.

I got a speeding ticket and traffic lawyers started sending me letters in the mail, advertising their services. It was like ordering from a fast food menu. X amount of money would get me '5 mph over' and Z amount of money would get me 'faulty radar'.

I think there should be NO SPEED LIMITS. There should only be SAFE SPEED RANGES... and tickets would be given based on reckless driving. But then cities would have to raise taxes because a huge source of revenue would vanish. It is almost like a state lottery.

www.fedlocally.com

[Hamilton]

Read a former post of mine about speed traps:

http://www.fedlocally.com/?p=29

[OBQuiet]

There seems to be some confusion here between the success rate at appeal and the validity of tickets in general. IF the average parking fine is $50 and the city is raising $210Mil each year, there are 4 million tickets issued each year. That means less than 1 in 15 is appealed. Now it would not be fair to assume that everyone that does not appeal is guilty, but it does suggest a much lower error rate that 50%.

Either way, it sounds lake a scam to me.

[Joshua]

I would like to add another case of City of Chicago "enforcement" of traffic regulations. This is a costly one - $100 for red light violation registered by camera. There is a camera on intersection of Narragansett and Irving Park. The right turn on red is allowed after 7 p.m. However the camera still registers violations past 7p.m. They have videos with the time stamp they have picture frames but don't count on any reversal of their determination. They are after your money. How many motorists become victims of this scam? It could be hundreds every night, because the honest people just follow the sign when traffic is not heavy and right turn is possible on red light.

Thus this intersection alone can earn this crooked city millions!