Zero-tolerance plan only gives a perception of fighting crime

although the zero toleracne blitz does keep the real criminals hiding in the house for a day or two I think the actual purpose was to increase revenue

Well Matt,

I would encourage you to go back and read the definition of the word STOP.

While it may seem like something minor, thise little traffic stops can go a long way to preventing crime. A police stop for a moving violation can turn into an arrest for narcotics, weapons, or other major violations.

Woody the reality is 99.9% of the time the police have no legitimate reason to search a vehicle they pull over for a minor traffic violation. The reality is that most citizens dont understand their rights and voluntarily allow their car to be searched. And trust me when the police search a car anything can become "drug paraphenalia". Sandwich bags, a broken antenna, rolling papers, an old medicine bottle, lighter, etc,etc,etc.

Stops lead to arrests, and without the actual drug, or tested/confirmed residue, it's not paraphernalia, but otherwise good job on knowing how to do the job, but not actually stepping up and doing it.

WOW! The editor really chopped up my letter...lol. But here is the original:
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I must say, that the zero tolerance blitz this past week was nothing but a joke in issuing citations to minor traffic offenders. Seriously, in all my years living in Youngstown I’ve never been pulled over by a Youngstown police officer and never had any past driving issues until recently. As I was being pulled over I thought is was funny because I’ve never been pulled over before and then I thought to myself, what did I do? It was even more funnier when the officer came to my car and asked for my license and registration without telling me what he pulled me over for. So, I asked him “aren’t you suppose to tell me what you pulled me over for first? Supposedly, I “rolled” a stop sign which basically means I didn’t come to a complete stop when coming to this stop sign. Now, this particular stop sign is not near the corner so it’s hard to realize it‘s there, it’s not like I ran it and just kept going. Later, I came back to this area and watched how other drivers approached this stop sign and surprisingly they all did the same thing. Therefore, this tells me that this officer could’ve stayed in that spot all day and literally wrote citations for “rolling” a stop sign all day. In this city, instead of doing this when was he going to spend time doing real police work?

This type of policing is a reason why a lot of people dislike police, especially when you live in a more high crime area some people feel that don’t they have more important issues to focus on. I mean, is Youngstown really known for having the highest minor traffic offenses in the country? This type of policing is more what I would expect from Poland, Boardman, Canfield, Austintown, Liberty and Coitsville but not the YPD. These other township police don’t have the challenge of dealing with major crime problems as the YPD does because they are simply not high crime areas. If focusing on minor traffic offenses is to help deter major criminal offenses, I would really like to know where this has worked.

All in all, it seems that right now the YPD is more concerned about minor offenses just to show stats that they are doing something instead of dealing with more major crime issues. Why? I’m sure it’s easier to deal with, make a case of and solve compared to a major crime. The perception is to have the public thinking that they are doing everything they can do to deter more violent crimes when in reality this is not the case. Lets just say this is the case, well then why did it take all these years for Youngstown to implement such a strict policy? Is it possibly because of the horrible death of Angeline Fimognari? Sorry to say, but this should not be the number one reasoning why. It’s not like before her death Youngstown didn’t have a major crime problem.

Matthew Livingston, Youngstown

On one hand, one can say we have to follow the law and no matter how minor or major it is it’s still the law. On the other hand, one can say in this country and in other countries around the world, the law doesn’t follow the law.

I totally agree with Livingston. Zero tolerance does not reduce crime; it does, however, raise money for the city of Youngstown on the backs of people who can least afford to pay.

Woody, I can't believe that you buy the words you put on paper! These little stops do not impact crime at all, but they prove to be a hardship on those of us who are stopped for nothing!