How Laws Generate Revenue for the Criminal Government

Proposal Bans Snacking, Smoking Behind the Wheel

Cellphone law: Holding one even briefly while driving is illegal, Ontario court rules

The City of Toronto issued 2,761,802 parking tickets in 2012, worth about $94 million dollars in revenue, down 2.5 per cent from a year earlier.

In New York City, the undisputed king of parking tickets, the municipal coffers are stuffed with nearly $600 million in parking ticket revenue annually -- about 50 percent more than in 2002. The financial opportunity is so large that New York hired more than 200 new agents this year, at a time when most city agencies were being cut.


In Chicago, the city leased its entire parking operation to a private company earlier this year. In exchange for the next 75 years of parking revenue, the city received an up-front payment of $1 billion from a group lead by investment bank Morgan Stanley. The deal is being challenged in court.