Oliver, Ga., with about 380 residents, gets more than half its budget from fines, but an investigation last year found that the local police had improperly written more than $40,000 in tickets outside their jurisdiction. They include Henderson, La., a town of about 2,000 people perched along Interstate 10 that collected $1.7 million in fines in 2019 - 89 percent of its general revenues - and where officers were accused of illegally receiving cash rewards for writing tickets.
A majority are in the South and Midwest, though clusters also appear outside New York City and Washington.
