Joseph O. Patton: How some make excuses for criminal behavior

Editor’s note: The original version of this article appeared in the July 2008 edition of the Capital City Free Press

  The current screaming and gnashing of teeth over red light cameras and police checkpoints in Montgomery raise an entirely more pressing issue: When did our collective view on crime shift so drastically that we completely disregard illegal behavior and instead nitpick how someone is busted for such behavior?

  Take the City of Montgomery’s new practice of utilizing red light cameras at major intersections: Despite the fact that there is clear photographic evidence of offenders running red lights - and in the process, breaking the law, being reckless and endangering other motorists and even pedestrians - many citizens of the Capital City inexplicably think it’s a greater issue that the ticket is being issued by a clerk wielding computer software  and reviewing the captured images instead of an actual uniformed officer brandishing a radar gun--the fact that the offenders have broken the law seems entirely irrelevant to the detractors of this new program. Granted, there are a few cases in which the offender is driving a vehicle registered in someone else’s name, but the ticket in such a scenario can easily be appealed… though quite frankly, that’s simply a risk you take whenever you allow someone else to drive your car.