Civilian Judicial System and Police Forces being used to generate revenue. Anyone else see this?

I have been in court on a couple of occasions for beefing traffic type tickets. The last time I was there it dawned on me that everyone in the court (but the defendants) were being paid to be there. The defendants were loosing money to be there...

Yeah, I've seen this. And, I've spoken to a few of my colleagues who are attorneys and city prosecutors and they acknowledge that a lot of the speeding tickets that are issued are solely revenue generators for the municipality.

I've always had a problem with this practice because it tends to impact lower income residents more than anyone else -- particularly when we start talking about licenses getting suspended and such for unpaid tickets. And, it's tough for them to contest the tickets even when they're not justified because more and more cities demand that you post the full cost of the ticket up front in addition to any court costs if you want to dispute it. If you can't afford to pay it, then you have to plead guilty and work out some sort of payment arrangement.

I was reading an article about this on how one can avoid tickets and such from unmarked vehicles. The purpose of unmarked vehicles is not for traffic or highway patrol, but simply to target other crime. One can say, they are considered "off duty" for traffic patrol.