Letters to the Editor
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Except for the fact that law breaking and law enforcement is a budgetary bright spot
Everywhere in the US law enforcement and the 'justice' system is a gold mine for local and country governments. There is no upside to them if they give up the revenue stream to the Federal government. Whereas they can arrest you, bail you and put you on probation for the most trivial of things, all it represents to you is an inconvenient schedule and perhaps a few hundred bucks a month in fees, fines, probation, assessment, courty mandated intervention programs and whatnot. My own county makes a sizeable part of their budget from low end crimes, traffic tickets and all the bullshit that involves. It's really just another tax and since the level of 'enforcement' is so massive, it touches almost everyone and so is actually a fairly equitable tax. In the US about 10-11% of the total population has first or second hand contact with local law enforcement through arrest, bail and either incarceration or the probation system. In the next decade or so you can expect that number to mushroom as localities have to scramble for money. So while you imagine it's scary to fight The Man, the fact is they'd rather rape your pockets then send you to a some Gulag somewhere. Gulags are cost centers and they don't like that.