If you’ve ever had to endure the trauma of a family game of Monopoly, then you’ll know how valuable those little orange "Get Out of Jail Free" cards are. Used to help you out of a tricky situation and get you back on the straight and narrow, they’re a secret weapon keeping you in the game.
But what if I told you that actually, they exist in real life? That they can be used to get you off the hook for all kinds of minor infringements, from speeding tickets to running red lights. Even better, they can be used again and again. Sounds ideal, huh? However, there’s a catch: because they’re only available to the New York Police Department and the friends and family of their choice. So can this system really be true?
On 22 January, 2018 the New York Post broke a story regarding NYPD officers’ dissatisfaction that the number of special privileges cards - or the "
Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association Cards"
as they’re apparently officially called - each officer receives is to be lowered; serving officers will have their allowance reduced to 20, retirees to 10. It's fair to say, they were not happy: "
They are treating active members like sh*t, and retired members even worse than sh*t," said one retired NYPD cop. "All the cops I spoke to were ... very disappointed they couldn’t hand them out as Christmas gifts." At least they’re keeping the Christmas theme up.
Unsurprisingly, the internet wasn’t too sympathetic to the officers’ plight:
Handed out by the
Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association (PBA), a police union, the cards are seen by officers as a way of saying thank you for their service and can be presented when required to “wiggle out of minor trouble”, as it has been put. Other unions, including the Detectives' Endowment Association and the Fraternal Order of Police also issue their own cards. Apparently, the presentation of the card when you’re in trouble shows that you’re a “friend” of law enforcement.
So, who gets a card? Well, once issued, officers can distribute them to their family and friends as they see fit. It's also believed that politicians, and community and religious leaders also have access to them. In other words, people at the top. Perhaps even more disturbingly, some have claimed that they are also offered to journalists, in what can only really be seen as an attempt to control, or at the very least sweet-talk, the press.
And accusations that the cards are tantamount to corruption hasn’t been helped by the revelation that the reason for their reduction is apparently to combat a pretty major flaw in the system, since the cards are
somehow
ending up on eBay for up to $200 a pop. Whether it is family and friends selling them, or police officers themselves remains unclear. But one thing is clear: that buying one can prove quite the bargain, considering that a first conviction speeding fine in New York can range from anything from $45 to $600, depending on how far over the limit you are.
VT reached out to the PBA for comment, but they did not respond. However, they have stated that the cards should not be seen as a “get out of jail free” token, stating simply: “
No, they are not.”
However, they still seemed to be pretty keen to shift attention away from the issue; until this week, when the story broke, their Twitter page hadn’t been used for 10 days. Suddenly, they’re posting photos of colourful, feel-good parades that they’ve been supporting. Funnily enough, there was no mention of the cards.
However, it is true that possession of a card guarantees nothing and whether or not to ignore it is purely at the arresting (or not) officer’s discretion. Gomez & Vournas LLC, a New York-based criminal defence firm, have downplayed their effectiveness, saying that they had seen: “hundreds of clients arrested and charged even after he or she displayed a 'PBA Card' to arresting officer”. But given that there are currently 36,000 serving officers in the NYPD, there are going to be hundreds of thousands of cards out there.