No it's not always given, but that itself is a complicated issue.
This particular topic has been approached from a variety of different angles in reporting. I've seen reporting focused on the misery/impact on individuals and the way that even tiny fines snowball. I know of at least one township in Ohio that was dissolved by state courts because it was essentially just a speed trap scam along I-70 (New Rome). I've seen people talk about filling budget gaps with tickets & fines.
I worry that Ryan's right that this is the kind of issue that's too big or ultimately too rooted policy to bring to the ground w/o a hook like tragic consequences of what is ultimately shitty ad hoc policing, judicial and tax policy.
So, the question of whether the public is responsible for paying attention is also a complicated topic... because citizens don't have a systemic understanding of governance or things like how police departments are funded.
When Chief Belmar says that this stuff is well known amongst the law enforcement community, the next question i wonder is what decision points did they have for how to bring this to the attention of the public? Did police neighboring police departments view this as an issue of policy? If municipally elected officials were ultimately responsible for ad hoc policies which were preying on their public... and they continued to be reelected (itself a complicated & fraught topic), what realistically could/should a potential whistleblower do?
And at that point... whose job is it to figure out what the appropriate approach is to communicate how potentially damaging a system like that might be, especially as a hypothetical issue? Is it the public's? Is it the whistleblower's? Is it a journalist's? How would that particular relationship be mediated? (and as an aside/example... the story about New Rome Ohio being dissolved, but never appreciated that this was a widespread systemic problem in the US)