Police Ticket Quotas? Good or Bad

[sommpd]

Originally Posted by foodcritic

First I never mentioned the word discretion that was already assumed by me to be a factor in policing. So I take that off the table.

Using statisical data probably drives most employees regardless of industry. If "all things being equal" you have an employee that handles more volume and does quality work. What do we do with the "low" volume quality guy?

The point here is that the tax payers have a right to their money being used as effectively as possible. Since I have worked both in the private sector and as a goverment employee I have seen the diffrence in work ethic and what constitutes "quality". Needless to say goverment employees tend to lag behind in both catagories.

I have seen what quota's or barrack averages does to police officers. A police officer will pull you over for a minor violation, and end up writing you four or five tickets, three or four of them getting nolle prossed. What good has that done. These same officers are so worried about making or exceeding the barrack average, they forget to run to the hot calls, the domestics, the b&e, or the officer requesting back up.

When you have a quota, you take a certain amount of discretion away from the officer because they are forced to write so many tickets a month.

This is the very reason the state legislature banned ticket quota's in Maryland.

[This_person]

Originally Posted by foodcritic

I suppose 1 is a valid concern. But what about the comparisons that would go on between shifts or officers even with out "Q". Why some "produce" more than others. Lots of factors in that.

The primary factor in that should be the number of people performing infractions, and the standard for officer's discretion at what gets a ticket, what gets a warning, and what gets ignored.

Why is one shift more productive than another? The answer is complicated.

I like the idea of tracking the % of convictions. But that won't answer the critic that got a speeding ticket for going 8 mph over when last week it was OK.

Nothing will answer that critic except standard enforcement. Since that will never happen, no one will ever be happy about it.

However, taking the incentive away to give tickets because you're running low compared to the guy next to you will probably make more officers standardize themselves throughout the period. Good oversight would help teach the officers what a good standard should be, and make it more consistent.

Again, I think this gets down to the value of the dollar and what the tax payer is getting for it and how we judge the effectivness of the police dept.

I agree it's about how we judge the effectiveness. Personally, I judge it by a lot of things, but when it comes to tickets I look at wastes of time. 3 mph over one week, 15 the next as standard tickets is not worthwhile use of the officer's time, IMO.