ie… police wrongdoing cases… wrongfully jailed… corruption then sued etc… etc.
In: Economics
You can be sued, doesn’t mean you will win the lawsuit. There are a lot of protections in place for police agencies, if you’re curious just do a google search for ‘qualified immunity’. Also of note, when they do actually lose a lawsuit, the police doesn’t pay it out, the state does.
Insurance and the never ending stream of profit center revenues from things like traffic tickets.
It’s not supposed to be sustainable. They’re supposed to not do things that cause them to have to pay out millions of dollars in damages.
But ultimately, the money comes from taxpayers, via whatever government (city, county, state, whatever) is levying the taxes that pay for the agency’s operations. Ideally, there would be professional or political consequences for the management of an agency that repeatedly screwed people over badly enough that it cost taxpayers millions of dollars in liability. In practice, the kinds of wrongdoing that cost taxpayers millions in liability are often popular and widely supported.
Those payments don’t come out of the police departments’ budget. The city/county/state pay out settlements from their general funds, which can significantly impact the finances of smaller governments. The financial strain may help encourage the elected officials to put pressure on the police departments to reform themselves.
Police have liability insurance. There’s whole insurance sectors which cover specifically for issues like this. Malpractice is another one.
Also keep in mind that many many police departments can go decades without a serious complaint. Their timely insurance payments help cover the payouts.
Further, a 10 million award might be paid put over 20 or 30 years. It then just gets rolled into the budget.
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