Policing for profit: The pirate-infested town of Brookside. 
Updated: Jan. 23, 2022, 12:22 p.m. | Published: Jan. 23, 2022, 12:22 p.m.
By J.D. Crowe | jdcrowe@al.com
Policing for profit turns cops into pirates. The banking-on-crime-police have turned the Alabama town of Brookside into a pirate-infested nightmare.
Read John Archibald’s jaw-dropping stories about this town that sucks drivers into a legal ‘black hole’ and Ashley Remkus’ investigation of Baldwin County’s ankle monitoring system that straps sometimes innocent people with debt. These stories are part of Al.com’s ‘Banking On Crime’ series.
Related: Police in this tiny Alabama town suck drivers into legal ‘black hole’ - al.com
Related: Pastor, sister say rogue Alabama police force sought revenge - al.com
Related: The dark roots of policing for profit -- and what to do about it - al.com
Excerpt from Archibald’s Brookside ‘black hole’ story:
The town of 1,253 just north of Birmingham reported just 55 serious crimes to the state in the entire eight year period between 2011 and 2018 – none of them homicide or rape. But in 2018 it began building a police empire, hiring more and more officers to blanket its six miles of roads and mile-and-a-half jurisdiction on Interstate 22.
By 2020 Brookside made more misdemeanor arrests than it has residents. It went from towing 50 vehicles in 2018 to 789 in 2020 – each carrying fines. That’s a 1,478% increase, with 1.7 tows for every household in town.
The growth has come with trouble to match. Brookside officers have been accused in lawsuits of fabricating charges, using racist language and “making up laws” to stack counts on passersby. Defendants must pay thousands in fines and fees – or pay for costly appeals to state court – and poorer residents or passersby fall into patterns of debt they cannot easily escape.
“Brookside is a poster child for policing for profit,” said Carla Crowder, the director of Alabama Appleseed Center for Law & Justice, a nonprofit devoted to justice and equity. “We are not safer because of it.”
Read the whole Brookside story here
Excerpt’s from Archibald’s policing for profit report:
On court days in Brookside, defendants line up outside while police direct traffic and order family members to remain in their cars. Many face hefty fines for failing to use a turn signal, or following too closely, or driving too long in the left lane of the interstate.
Police in Brookside stopped a woman named Alexis Morgan for failure to dim her lights. A judge in the town last month ordered her to pay $445 in fines and fees.
Police stopped another woman for an expired tag and charged her with failure to display insurance. Because she didn’t have the $410 in fines and fees, the court put her on a payment plan.
The notion that court systems should be funded by “users,” or that courts should be self-supporting and not a basic part of government, often sounds good to voters. Until police pull them over in a place like Brookside for having a car tag light that is—according to an officer, too bright or too dim — or when their property is towed or confiscated to pay for a police force that has grown 10-fold in recent years while the population and crime rate have largely gone unchanged.
Towns that rely on citations for revenue profit by keeping citizens in the criminal justice system – using them as ATMs, as one Missouri lawmaker put it. They often use long payment plans to extract the most from those who can least afford to pay or to defend themselves.
Read the whole policing for profit report here
Stories of how Alabama legal systems criminalize poverty.
This Alabama county fastens ankle monitors on hundreds who aren’t convicted of crimes - al.com
Life on an ankle monitor in Alabama: $10 a day and ‘inevitable imperfections'
Excerpt from Remkus’ ankle monitor story:
Misty Jackson walked out of jail in May of 2020 with an electronic bracelet wrapped firmly around her ankle.
After posting bail, Jackson paid another $75 to have that ankle monitor attached. Then she had to pay $10 for every day she wore it.
If she’d been arrested in almost any other county in Alabama, she would’ve posted bail and been free until her self-defense claims came to court. But Baldwin County along the coast in south Alabama is different.
People there are routinely forced to wear ankle monitors while out on bail even though they haven’t been convicted of crimes. Many are charged with low-level offenses, such as theft or drug possession — crimes for which they are unlikely to face time behind bars, even if found guilty.
Read the whole story here
Updated: Jan. 23, 2022, 12:22 p.m. | Published: Jan. 23, 2022, 12:22 p.m.
By J.D. Crowe | jdcrowe@al.com
Policing for profit turns cops into pirates. The banking-on-crime-police have turned the Alabama town of Brookside into a pirate-infested nightmare.
Read John Archibald’s jaw-dropping stories about this town that sucks drivers into a legal ‘black hole’ and Ashley Remkus’ investigation of Baldwin County’s ankle monitoring system that straps sometimes innocent people with debt. These stories are part of Al.com’s ‘Banking On Crime’ series.
Related: Police in this tiny Alabama town suck drivers into legal ‘black hole’ - al.com
Related: Pastor, sister say rogue Alabama police force sought revenge - al.com
Related: The dark roots of policing for profit -- and what to do about it - al.com
Excerpt from Archibald’s Brookside ‘black hole’ story:
The town of 1,253 just north of Birmingham reported just 55 serious crimes to the state in the entire eight year period between 2011 and 2018 – none of them homicide or rape. But in 2018 it began building a police empire, hiring more and more officers to blanket its six miles of roads and mile-and-a-half jurisdiction on Interstate 22.
By 2020 Brookside made more misdemeanor arrests than it has residents. It went from towing 50 vehicles in 2018 to 789 in 2020 – each carrying fines. That’s a 1,478% increase, with 1.7 tows for every household in town.
The growth has come with trouble to match. Brookside officers have been accused in lawsuits of fabricating charges, using racist language and “making up laws” to stack counts on passersby. Defendants must pay thousands in fines and fees – or pay for costly appeals to state court – and poorer residents or passersby fall into patterns of debt they cannot easily escape.
“Brookside is a poster child for policing for profit,” said Carla Crowder, the director of Alabama Appleseed Center for Law & Justice, a nonprofit devoted to justice and equity. “We are not safer because of it.”
Read the whole Brookside story here
Excerpt’s from Archibald’s policing for profit report:
On court days in Brookside, defendants line up outside while police direct traffic and order family members to remain in their cars. Many face hefty fines for failing to use a turn signal, or following too closely, or driving too long in the left lane of the interstate.
Police in Brookside stopped a woman named Alexis Morgan for failure to dim her lights. A judge in the town last month ordered her to pay $445 in fines and fees.
Police stopped another woman for an expired tag and charged her with failure to display insurance. Because she didn’t have the $410 in fines and fees, the court put her on a payment plan.
The notion that court systems should be funded by “users,” or that courts should be self-supporting and not a basic part of government, often sounds good to voters. Until police pull them over in a place like Brookside for having a car tag light that is—according to an officer, too bright or too dim — or when their property is towed or confiscated to pay for a police force that has grown 10-fold in recent years while the population and crime rate have largely gone unchanged.
Towns that rely on citations for revenue profit by keeping citizens in the criminal justice system – using them as ATMs, as one Missouri lawmaker put it. They often use long payment plans to extract the most from those who can least afford to pay or to defend themselves.
Read the whole policing for profit report here
Stories of how Alabama legal systems criminalize poverty.
This Alabama county fastens ankle monitors on hundreds who aren’t convicted of crimes - al.com
Life on an ankle monitor in Alabama: $10 a day and ‘inevitable imperfections'
Excerpt from Remkus’ ankle monitor story:
Misty Jackson walked out of jail in May of 2020 with an electronic bracelet wrapped firmly around her ankle.
After posting bail, Jackson paid another $75 to have that ankle monitor attached. Then she had to pay $10 for every day she wore it.
If she’d been arrested in almost any other county in Alabama, she would’ve posted bail and been free until her self-defense claims came to court. But Baldwin County along the coast in south Alabama is different.
People there are routinely forced to wear ankle monitors while out on bail even though they haven’t been convicted of crimes. Many are charged with low-level offenses, such as theft or drug possession — crimes for which they are unlikely to face time behind bars, even if found guilty.
Read the whole story here
