Safety Officers or Tax Collectors?

[LPTaxpayer]

Everyone knows that all local governments, as well as the state government (and even the federal government), are struggling to find ways to "get the money they need to keep doing what they are doing". There has been a lot of discussion about whether police officers should be issuing "all the tickets" they can...in particular, traffic-related tickets.

Recently, at work, several of us were talking about this. One of my co-workers (and the others agreed) that "Police Officers" are supposed to be "Safety Officers"...and not "Tax Collectors."

Even if the tickets are issued, many may be dimissed in court because the tickets are time-wasters in nature. Thereby, the jurisdications have lost money in the officer's time and the court time. Not-to-say, should this occur too often, the local citizens would begin to avoid the police officers...even in a time of need.

I thought this might ber a good area for a discussion:

What is your opinion?

Should our police officers be safety officers or tax collectors (or both)?

(To be honest...at work, the overall conclusion, is that the way Michigan's economy is and kinds of people we have "runing around," we need more safety officers than tax collectors.)

So what do you think?

[Harrison]

I think that safety officers should be more concerned with lawbreakers than with getting more revenue for their jurisdiction. I am more concerned about safety, i.e., ensuring that they will show up at your door when you call for help.