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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7477086.html

Budget cuts. Someone remind me again why constables patrol? Isn't it enough that we have HPD and Harris county sheriff patrols? The answer might be no, currently, but I would think those 2 should be doing all of the patrolling for Houston, not constables. Stay in court (or hunting down warrants) or doing security. I shouldn't have to worry about 3 different organizations power trippy cops trying to give me traffic tickets.

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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7477086.html

Budget cuts. Someone remind me again why constables patrol? Isn't it enough that we have HPD and Harris county sheriff patrols? The answer might be no, currently, but I would think those 2 should be doing all of the patrolling for Houston, not constables. Stay in court (or hunting down warrants) or doing security. I shouldn't have to worry about 3 different organizations power trippy cops trying to give me traffic tickets.

from the article:

"The largest cuts will come in Precinct 4, where Constable Ron Hickman said he will lay off 70 to 80 people and cancel contracts with several school districts, chief among them Cy-Fair ISD, to which he contributes 38 deputies."

In other words, the area which is least served by other branches of law enforcement will suffer the greatest cuts? I see Houston Police, HCC police, HISD police, METRO police in my neighborhood - but seldom a constable car.

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from the article:

"The largest cuts will come in Precinct 4, where Constable Ron Hickman said he will lay off 70 to 80 people and cancel contracts with several school districts, chief among them Cy-Fair ISD, to which he contributes 38 deputies."

In other words, the area which is least served by other branches of law enforcement will suffer the greatest cuts? I see Houston Police, HCC police, HISD police, METRO police in my neighborhood - but seldom a constable car.

I see constable cars all the time out near and beyond the western city limit but rarely closer in so I would assume that the constables mainly concentrate on the edges beyond the city limits.

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http://www.chron.com...an/7477086.html

Budget cuts. Someone remind me again why constables patrol? Isn't it enough that we have HPD and Harris county sheriff patrols? The answer might be no, currently, but I would think those 2 should be doing all of the patrolling for Houston, not constables. Stay in court (or hunting down warrants) or doing security. I shouldn't have to worry about 3 different organizations power trippy cops trying to give me traffic tickets.

Doesn't the sheriff's office mainly concentrate on court-related duties?

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Doesn't the sheriff's office mainly concentrate on court-related duties?

Maybe county court. I thought constables original purpose was to track down warrants, and they managed to expand themselves to do whatever HPD already do. To me it's a duplication of effort, a waste.

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I had a constable pull me over for accelerating too fast a couple years ago. I told him I wasn't speeding and didn't accelerate fast enough to break my tires loose. He agreed but still claimed that I had accelerated too fast and he would have to take me to jail. He claimed that he didn't have any way to give me a ticket so his only alternative was jail. I had to resort to begging him to not take me to jail. My wife was really upset. He finally relented and told me he was going to let me go but I better stay out of the area. For anyone who thinks only black and poor people get harassed... I'm white and I was driving an almost brand new Porsche 911.

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Maybe county court. I thought constables original purpose was to track down warrants, and they managed to expand themselves to do whatever HPD already do. To me it's a duplication of effort, a waste.

Constables are more like rent-a-cops, but in a more literal sense than it's meant when used for security guards. An actual police officer paid to cover an area. County sheriffs can be few and far between and HPD is only in the city, so neighborhoods will hire constables to patrol the neighborhood.

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Constables are more like rent-a-cops, but in a more literal sense than it's meant when used for security guards. An actual police officer paid to cover an area. County sheriffs can be few and far between and HPD is only in the city, so neighborhoods will hire constables to patrol the neighborhood.

So they are semi-publicly funded harassers for hire, that's even worse. If they exist to a large extent because of these contracts with neighborhoods or other developments, then they should be run like a temp agency and no one should care about layoffs, and their public funding should be totally removed. I also think they should stay out of traffic business. The jgriff story is pretty familiar - some unqualified, ignorant power-trippy jackass who at his own whim decides to mess with people who are not doing anything that hurts anyone. I'm sorry you struggled to get through 5th grade, but just because you have a car with 9 antennas and a gun doesn't give you the right to take it out on the rest of us.

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Maybe county court. I thought constables original purpose was to track down warrants, and they managed to expand themselves to do whatever HPD already do. To me it's a duplication of effort, a waste.

I grew up in 2 different neighborhoods outside the city limits in NW houston. The only law enforcement that ever patrolled either neighborhood were constables and they were a welcome sight. I've always seen them as legitimate peace officers, an extension of the sheriff's dept. there to pick up the slack. There will always be more residential neighborhoods on county land to serve than there are sheriffs to do so.

It is hardly a duplication of effort.

So they are semi-publicly funded harassers for hire, that's even worse.

They are fully public county entities. They are available for hire in the same way cops are available for funeral processions or event security because the demand for authority will always be greater than the supply.

I think one way to look at is - HPD has all these duties, traffic enforcement, crime Investigation, patrol, etc... within the city limits. The county has the same responsibilities with less officers covering a greater area outside the city limits. Constables are the County's Jr. Varsity team, there to do the less important duties, like community patrol and some traffic enforcement.

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So they are semi-publicly funded harassers for hire, that's even worse. If they exist to a large extent because of these contracts with neighborhoods or other developments, then they should be run like a temp agency and no one should care about layoffs, and their public funding should be totally removed. I also think they should stay out of traffic business. The jgriff story is pretty familiar - some unqualified, ignorant power-trippy jackass who at his own whim decides to mess with people who are not doing anything that hurts anyone. I'm sorry you struggled to get through 5th grade, but just because you have a car with 9 antennas and a gun doesn't give you the right to take it out on the rest of us.

The constables are certified peace officers, just like sheriff deputies and HPD. The easy way to avoid one is to not break traffic laws. If you feel harassed, ask for a supervisor. You may have to wait a while, but one will show up.

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I had a constable pull me over for accelerating too fast a couple years ago. I told him I wasn't speeding and didn't accelerate fast enough to break my tires loose. He agreed but still claimed that I had accelerated too fast and he would have to take me to jail. He claimed that he didn't have any way to give me a ticket so his only alternative was jail. I had to resort to begging him to not take me to jail. My wife was really upset. He finally relented and told me he was going to let me go but I better stay out of the area. For anyone who thinks only black and poor people get harassed... I'm white and I was driving an almost brand new Porsche 911.

I dont know if you are trying to joke... Are you being facetious? If not then it's not good that this happened. You should have filed a report. And what's this BS about him not being able to give you a ticket?

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My only complaint against Constables is since they are not an entity funded by state or local taxes they are very revenue generated and will go overboard giving out citations. Still remember one a few years back that gave my wife a ticket claiming her license plate was obscured when in reality the dealers frame barely covered the top of the T in Texas. It was totally bogus and we eventually got it dropped but cost us a lot of time and money to do so. I've never been a fan of constables but realize some areas depend on them. I just wish they could not give traffic citations.

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My only complaint against Constables is since they are not an entity funded by state or local taxes they are very revenue generated and will go overboard giving out citations. Still remember one a few years back that gave my wife a ticket claiming her license plate was obscured when in reality the dealers frame barely covered the top of the T in Texas. It was totally bogus and we eventually got it dropped but cost us a lot of time and money to do so. I've never been a fan of constables but realize some areas depend on them. I just wish they could not give traffic citations.

Constables are funded by tax dollars. The entities that pay for contract deputies pay over and above the tax revenue. None of the ticket money goes to the constables, just like HPD doesn't get any of the money for the citations they issue.

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Constables are funded by tax dollars. The entities that pay for contract deputies pay over and above the tax revenue. None of the ticket money goes to the constables, just like HPD doesn't get any of the money for the citations they issue.

Really? Where do you think that $22,400,000 in the County's revenue budget under the heading "Fines" comes from then? Likewise, where does the City of Houston get that $36,600,000 in "Municipal Court Fines" from?

Maybe you are naive, or possibly trying to make cops out not to be writing tickets for budget purposes, but traffic tickets are big business. Lots of pressure is exerted at the upper levels to make the scofflaws finance the government. How much of that pressure gets down to the street cop can be debated, but I know from being on both sides of the criminal justice fence that it does. Take a day off and go to the misdemeanor courts one day. Ask the defense lawyers how much the fines are now versus several years back. Not only will you find that they went up when the budget got tight, you can find prosecutors who will tell you exactly why.

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Really? Where do you think that $22,400,000 in the County's revenue budget under the heading "Fines" comes from then? Likewise, where does the City of Houston get that $36,600,000 in "Municipal Court Fines" from?

Maybe you are naive, or possibly trying to make cops out not to be writing tickets for budget purposes, but traffic tickets are big business. Lots of pressure is exerted at the upper levels to make the scofflaws finance the government. How much of that pressure gets down to the street cop can be debated, but I know from being on both sides of the criminal justice fence that it does. Take a day off and go to the misdemeanor courts one day. Ask the defense lawyers how much the fines are now versus several years back. Not only will you find that they went up when the budget got tight, you can find prosecutors who will tell you exactly why.

I went through this on another thread bitching about cops, but they have been instructed to write multiple violations if at all possible when pulling someone over too. It's a damn cash cow. I would GLADLY pay $100 extra per year in taxes if they would leave me the hell alone, and I average less than a ticket per year. So they would get their $$, and I would be less cynical toward "law" enforcement.

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I went through this on another thread bitching about cops, but they have been instructed to write multiple violations if at all possible when pulling someone over too. It's a damn cash cow. I would GLADLY pay $100 extra per year in taxes if they would leave me the hell alone, and I average less than a ticket per year. So they would get their $$, and I would be less cynical toward "law" enforcement.

Actually, multiple violations in one citation is a GOOD thing. If you have a moving violation and a non-moving violation, you may ask the prosecutor to let you plea guilty to the non-moving and dismiss the moving. They almost always agree, and this keeps a moving violation of your record. No points on your DL, and no increase in insurance rates, but the government still gets their money, and of course, the officer gets more violations written. Sort of a win-win. But, at the root of it all is still the fact that...even though ticket "quotas" may be used by the police to judge whether the officer is actually working...ticket revenue is a significant portion of any local government's budget, and the budget writers count on that revenue to balance the budget. Anyone who thinks that police chiefs are not told to make sure the revenue stream stays up is living in a fantasy.

I could get into specifics, but I won't. It is not necessary to point out specific departments or municipalities. It happens to a greater or lesser extent in every municipality that has a budget, which is to say, all of them. If you google it right, you can see the Houston debates on this issue covered in the news.

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I went through this on another thread bitching about cops, but they have been instructed to write multiple violations if at all possible when pulling someone over too. It's a damn cash cow. I would GLADLY pay $100 extra per year in taxes if they would leave me the hell alone, and I average less than a ticket per year. So they would get their $, and I would be less cynical toward "law" enforcement.

Please alert me when you're on the road. Or, quit driving like a jackass. Take your pick.

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Really? Where do you think that $22,400,000 in the County's revenue budget under the heading "Fines" comes from then? Likewise, where does the City of Houston get that $36,600,000 in "Municipal Court Fines" from?

Maybe you are naive, or possibly trying to make cops out not to be writing tickets for budget purposes, but traffic tickets are big business. Lots of pressure is exerted at the upper levels to make the scofflaws finance the government. How much of that pressure gets down to the street cop can be debated, but I know from being on both sides of the criminal justice fence that it does. Take a day off and go to the misdemeanor courts one day. Ask the defense lawyers how much the fines are now versus several years back. Not only will you find that they went up when the budget got tight, you can find prosecutors who will tell you exactly why.

Maybe I should have said that the money doesn't go directly to the law enforcement agencies. Constables and HPD could write no tickets at all and still be funded. Do you think it's unreasonable to include ticket revenue in the budget? Or should it just be ignored for planning purposes, and be treated as "found money" when it comes in?

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Maybe I should have said that the money doesn't go directly to the law enforcement agencies. Constables and HPD could write no tickets at all and still be funded. Do you think it's unreasonable to include ticket revenue in the budget? Or should it just be ignored for planning purposes, and be treated as "found money" when it comes in?

Imagine a law that prohibited a municipality from budgeting for income from fines. In many municipalities, there'd be a budget for public meetings and for PIA requests and then there'd be an informal budget that never saw the light of day. The same informal pressures would still apply, and probably the only thing that would be impacted are the reliability and transparency of budgeting procedures.

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Really? Where do you think that $22,400,000 in the County's revenue budget under the heading "Fines" comes from then? Likewise, where does the City of Houston get that $36,600,000 in "Municipal Court Fines" from?

That's all!? For the City of Houston, that's only $17.43 per capita per year. Is your figure on some kind of a net revenue calculation?

I ask because I've only ever had one parking ticket and one moving violation (for a rolling stop) in the nine years I've lived here; my total cost has been about $260, which averages to $28.88 per year. That's a pretty good driving record, I think.

Granted, some people don't drive or drive very little, but when you throw in all the extra tickets that the City must give on commuters that work here and spend more time on the road but that don't get counted in the per capita figure, and when you account for frequent offenders and offenders that rack up a littany of offenses in a single traffic stop, there should be a godawful lot more money being made from fines.

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That is straight from the City Budget. And, it should be noted, that figure is down 20% from the mid-2000s, when the City would rake in about $45 million a year. As for the per person average, a relatively small percentage of people ever get traffic citations, fewer get parking tickets. Of the ones that get tickets, many take defensive driving, or sit the ticket out in jail once a warrant is issued. And there can only be as much revenue as tickets are written. HPD used to write more tickets than it does now. Some believe it is a political maneuver on the part of HPD (or more accurately, their unions).

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Do you think it's unreasonable to include ticket revenue in the budget? Or should it just be ignored for planning purposes, and be treated as "found money" when it comes in?

Absolutely, traffic fine revenue should be part of the budget. And I am not opposed to traffic fines being used to fund government. Fines are used to modify behavior. And the fines help fund the police force, which does far more than simply write tickets. Perhaps it is stating the obvious, but traffic fines should not be directly linked to police funding, though. That encourages even more questionable ticket writing practices than the current system does.

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Please alert me when you're on the road. Or, quit driving like a jackass. Take your pick.

Who said I drive like a jackass? Stop daydreaming while you read my posts. You are probably the tool in the left lane who slows down to 50 when answering the phone, and just stays in the left lane and somehow thinks that's the best thing to do. There, I made something up about your driving based on absolutely nothing.

Last time I got pulled over I wasn't even speeding. Asshat cop said 70 in a 60, but he said he didn't gun me, he paced me, and he also tried to claim I was following too close to another car. Neither of which happened. Assistant DA agreed it was weak, plus idiot cop was in Spring Valley where he supposedly paced me, so it was out of his jurisdiction, so it got thrown out.

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Imagine a law that prohibited a municipality from budgeting for income from fines. In many municipalities, there'd be a budget for public meetings and for PIA requests and then there'd be an informal budget that never saw the light of day. The same informal pressures would still apply, and probably the only thing that would be impacted are the reliability and transparency of budgeting procedures.

Wasn't there a law passed a few years ago, preventing municipalities from receiving more than a certain percentage of their incomes from traffic fines? My understanding that after a certain amount, the excess fines would be turned over to the State. This law was passed in an effort to reign in some of the more notorious ticket trap small towns.

(Correct me if I'm wrong - I'm sure someone will :))

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Wasn't there a law passed a few years ago, preventing municipalities from receiving more than a certain percentage of their incomes from traffic fines? My understanding that after a certain amount, the excess fines would be turned over to the State. This law was passed in an effort to reign in some of the more notorious ticket trap small towns.

(Correct me if I'm wrong - I'm sure someone will :))

Yes. I'm not familiar with the details, but that's the gist of it.

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Who said I drive like a jackass? Stop daydreaming while you read my posts. You are probably the tool in the left lane who slows down to 50 when answering the phone, and just stays in the left lane and somehow thinks that's the best thing to do. There, I made something up about your driving based on absolutely nothing.

Last time I got pulled over I wasn't even speeding. Asshat cop said 70 in a 60, but he said he didn't gun me, he paced me, and he also tried to claim I was following too close to another car. Neither of which happened. Assistant DA agreed it was weak, plus idiot cop was in Spring Valley where he supposedly paced me, so it was out of his jurisdiction, so it got thrown out.

You have a hard-on for cops. Folks like you are usually the angry weavers who think everyone should stay out of your way because you are too damn important to follow "stupid" traffic laws. You "average less than a ticket a year"? Marvelous.

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You have a hard-on for cops. Folks like you are usually the angry weavers who think everyone should stay out of your way because you are too damn important to follow "stupid" traffic laws. You "average less than a ticket a year"? Marvelous.

I'm pretty sure that's not what having a hard-on means. You should google that or something. No, idiots are what I can't stand. Cops serving public safety are fine by me. Cops who make up traffic fines from nothing fall into the idiot category, or cops who are out to do nothing but make money by pulling people over who are driving perfectly safely. I've never once complained about a ticket I'm guilty of. I'm just annoyed I got caught. I'm friendly with the cop and joke around, it even got me out of a ticket 5 years ago or so.

Less than a ticket per year - that was your 3rd grade math lesson for justifying just adding a $100 to my taxes every year (more than I would pay in traffic fines if I got a ticket every other year) if cops stop harassing people who are doing nothing wrong just to get money. If you want stats on my driving, fine, 7 total tickets in 17 years of driving, last one 3 years ago.

How about we stick to your original proposal of me letting you know when I'll be on the road, so you can stay home. I'll be out on the road tomorrow from 6am to 11pm, and also every day after that for the next 35 years. Please stay home.

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I had a constable pull me over for accelerating too fast a couple years ago. I told him I wasn't speeding and didn't accelerate fast enough to break my tires loose. He agreed but still claimed that I had accelerated too fast and he would have to take me to jail. He claimed that he didn't have any way to give me a ticket so his only alternative was jail. I had to resort to begging him to not take me to jail. My wife was really upset. He finally relented and told me he was going to let me go but I better stay out of the area. For anyone who thinks only black and poor people get harassed... I'm white and I was driving an almost brand new Porsche 911.

Let me me guess.. were you on lower Fondren?

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