Were all on the same boat the people need to pay their fines.
pdggp, here's an example. A police officer pulls a car over for speeding. Instead of writing a ticket and letting person move on, they now have to either drive the person back to the station or arrange for pickup which still takes another vehilce/officer off the roads. Even if it's a 5-10% drop in staffing to patrol neighborhoods, that is either a 5-10% drop in officers staying out there or facing an increase of 5-10% in staffing to keep up with the additional demand. That 5-10% will adventually end up being passed along as tax levies/increase in taxes. It will ultimately will end up to a huge tax debate of small versus big government. Why spend 1 million bucks when you are getting back 500k.
A possible median would be to make it easier for the collection agencies who are working with states/cites to take money from peoples pay check, allow the states to deduct the dues from the person federal tax income check, or EBT/food stamps until arrangements are met. People would still have to pay their debts and the police could continue with normal operations.