Arkansas bars Parkin police from issuing highway tickets until 2030

The decision does not strip Parkin police of all law enforcement authority, and it does not apply to every street. Todd Murray, prosecutor for the First Judicial District, ordered Parkin to stop patrolling federal and state highways within the city’s administrative boundaries. The ban remains in force until Dec. 31, 2030.

In practice, that means Parkin police cannot conduct their own traffic enforcement on those road sections. If an officer violates the order, any citation or fine issued could lead to a misdemeanor charge. Arkansas State Police and the Cross County Sheriff’s Office will patrol the affected stretches instead.

Murray said Parkin police used criminal and traffic law enforcement mainly to raise municipal revenue rather than to protect public safety. The investigation began in 2024 after repeated complaints from drivers who described abusive ticketing practices.

Arkansas Legislative Audit found that Parkin collected $284,752 in fines and costs in 2024, exceeding the state’s 30 percent threshold under its speed trap law by $60,953.

Parkin is a small city. The 2020 census put its population at 794, while newer ACS data estimates about 694 residents. For a municipality of that size, nearly $285,000 in fine revenue became especially sensitive politically and legally.

Arkansas’ Speed Trap Law allows the head of the state police to investigate whether a municipality is abusing police power through unlawful traps. Among other things, the law presumes abuse if revenue from traffic offenses exceeds 30 percent of the municipality’s calculated expenditures, or if more than half of speeding cases involve violations of up to 10 mph over the limit.

The same law gives the prosecutor the power to impose a sanction: the municipality must either stop patrolling the affected highways or direct future revenue from fines and court costs to the county school fund. In Parkin’s case, Murray chose the first option.

According to KAIT, Murray also noted in his decision that Parkin’s reputation as a trap did not emerge overnight. The city drew attention over the same issue in a 2007 television report, and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has written about Parkin’s ticketing practices since 2018. In other words, the problem was not a one-off excess but a repeated pattern that state oversight deemed an abuse of police power.

That does not mean traffic enforcement will disappear in Parkin. On the contrary, state police and the county sheriff’s office will take over patrols on the affected stretches. What changes is the enforcing authority: the local police force, whose conduct the prosecutor said was driven by revenue, will step back from those highways, and oversight will move to a higher level. The decision also sends a clear signal to other municipalities. Fines can be a traffic safety tool, but when fine revenue starts filling the budget, police work becomes a crisis of trust.