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This week the U.S. Department of Justice asked state and local courts to stop the routine arrest of individuals for unpaid parking tickets. (Star-Ledger file photo)

By Taysen Van Itallie

In early February, Princeton University professor Imani Perry was stopped for speeding and found to have an outstanding arrest warrant issued by the Princeton Municipal Court for failure to pay two parking tickets.

She was handcuffed, searched, transported to the police station, handcuffed to a work station and ultimately released after paying $130 in fines and fees. Whether the professor had received notices of missed court dates and the issuance of the arrest warrant was unclear.

Yesterday, on my way to work, I was arrested in Princeton Township for a single parking ticket three years ago... — Imani Perry (@imaniperry) February 7, 2016

Initial concern that Perry had been the victim of racial profiling dissipated after an investigation revealed the warrant, arrest, search and handcuffing had all been according to Municipal Court and Police Department policy.

But many observers were left with a question: What kind of a "policy" criminalizes parking tickets and enlists coercive, humiliating police procedures to collect them?

New Jersey's Legislature should promptly scrutinize the routine issuance of arrest warrants for unpaid parking tickets by the state's municipal courts.

Perry's incident opened a window into this ubiquitous and deeply troubling national practice: the use of municipal courts to criminalize petty violations of parking and other local ordinances through the issuance of arrest warrants enforced by the police not for the purpose of protecting public safety, but to enhance the collection of revenue.

The most egregious example of this practice was highlighted by the U.S. Department of Justice's March 4, 2015 report about the City of Ferguson's Police Department. The report decried the corrosive effect of diverting the police from public safety to revenue collection, and the central role played by municipal court practices. To quote the report:

The municipal "court primarily uses its judicial authority as the means to compel the payment of fines and fees that advance the City's financial interests."

And:

"Most strikingly, the court issues municipal arrest warrants not on the basis of public safety needs, but rather as a routine response to missed court appearances and required fine payments."

New Jersey got into the business of using arrest warrants to collect parking tickets in 1985 with the passage of the "Parking Offenses Adjudication Act." The act authorized, but did not require, the state's municipal courts to employ multiple coercive techniques for the collection of unpaid parking tickets, including suspension of the driver's license, revocation of driving privileges, and the issuance of warrants for arrest.

In 2006, the state Legislature was presented with evidence that enforcement of the Parking Offenses Act was concentrated in low income, urban areas, and that license suspensions -- at that point averaging 140,000 suspension orders a year for unpaid parking tickets -- were particularly harmful, leading to job loss, diminished income and psychological harm.

Evidence showed license suspensions on account of parking tickets were more than 10 times higher for lower income residents than statewide rates. The analysis did not focus on arrest warrants, but presumably they exhibited the same pattern.

Current data on the number of arrest warrants issued by the state's municipal courts for unpaid parking tickets are not available. The State's Municipal Court Services Division does not keep data in that form. It is disturbing the state does not monitor its use of a practice that has led to abuse and concern across the country.

The Department of Justice recommended that the Ferguson municipal court "stop using arrest warrants as a means of collecting owed fines and fess." It suggested the court substitute a procedure assuring personal service of notice of a court hearing and an opportunity to be heard on ability to pay, etc.

Multiple states and communities across the country have opted to decriminalize the collection of parking tickets, taking the issue out of the hands of the courts and police and managing it administratively. Such an approach recognizes that even where enforcement is free of abuse, the use of coercive police practices to collect parking tickets undermines police legitimacy and corrodes community trust.

There are multiple effective collection techniques that don't expose citizens to humiliating arrest and even jail. There is nothing in the authorizing legislation or the municipal court rules that require municipal court judges routinely to issue such warrants.

Eliminating or curtailing police enforcement will augment police stature in the community and allow for reallocation of their resources to functions that actually enhance public safety.

Taysen Van Itallie is a lawyer in Princeton.

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