reply to post by nakiannunaki
Yeah I've noticed this too. A couple of years ago I was staying in Brisbane, Australia, and saw in the newspapers reports of increased rate of people
in the city CBD being fined for 'jaywalking', or crossing a road away from traffic lights. Whilst I was there, traffic in the city was often a
standstill in peak hours, so it stood to reason that people would quickly cross whilst no-one was moving, or when there were no cars coming, which
often happened during quieter hours.
Whilst in the city I flicked a cigarette butt into the bin and turned away. What I didn't realise is that some council officers had been watching me
from across the mall the whole time. As I began to walk away, they caught up with me and fined me $200, because, little did I know, the cigarette butt
had rebounded off the edge of the bin and bounced onto the ground. I tried not to litter but accidentally failed, and had to front the cost. I was a
student at the time, so that meant no food for a week and a half after paying the fine.
When I was getting my pilot license (in Australia and again in Queensland), I found out that my flight instructor had been charged and fined for
indecent exposure in a public place. At first I was kind of alarmed, because that's not the sort of thing a young woman would want her male
instructor to be guilty of. Then I heard the rest of the story: whilst driving along the highway late at night, he'd stopped to take a leak in some
bushes on the side of the road in the dark. Then the highway patrol appeared out of nowhere and caught him, resulting in his record of indecent
exposure.
So not only do these very small misdeamours cost people loads of money in fines, they can also adversely affect someone's career. I know that in
Queensland, Australia, the police no longer have discretionary powers, so they
must enforce even the slightest misdeamour, whereas previously
they could use their powers of discretion for the benefit of the people they're supposed to look after. In many places in Australia, people now get
fined a couple of hundred dollars for swearing in public.
I think their agenda behind this is to increase government revenue. Instead of increasing taxes too much, they just introduce more and more silly
little laws and abolish police discretion, so they can raise money under the guise of serving the public.