With a few strokes of a pen, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett last week shut down that notorious den of corruption otherwise known as the Philadelphia Traffic Court.
In January, nine former traffic court judges were indicted on charges for their alleged roles in a wide-ranging ticket-fixing scheme. Some, including the flamboyant Fortunato Perri, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and other related charges.
The Philadelphia example is just the latest in a long string of corruption cases centering on major players in the traffic justice system. Cops, prosecutors, court clerks and judges—all of have been implicated in recent scandals. Many observers have been asking why traffic enforcement operations are so prone to corruption and is there anything we can do about it?
For the answers, we turn to Jim Baxter, who covered the Philadelphia scandal in a NMA blog post earlier this year. We’ve reprinted it here in its entirety:
