OK, we’ve all had the smoke blown up our asses. Law enforcement doesn’t employ quotas. However after listening to my scanner for the last 2 weeks I find 2 glaring contradictions to that.
For the last 2 weeks there have been “checkpoints” and saturation.
Last week at 1:30 am local I heard one deputy remark to the other that he had just pulled over a car with 4 adults and a visible case of beer. After remarking that all were sober, the second replied, “Too bad, you probably just nailed them a mile too soon”. Too bad?!? They’re hoping people are drunk?
Tonight, a fight broke out at a hotel here. A second officer was called to assist. When a 3rd called that he was already there, the 2nd was dismissed from the call. He was NOT happy about this. The dispatcher told him he’d “sneak” officer 2 to the front. Sure enough, 2 calls later his squad number was called to a DUI complaint.
I think you’re overreacting. It could mean what you say, but it could also mean “they shouldn’t be driving, but they’re not breaking the law (legally drunk) so we can’t do anything to stop them.”
The second call doesn’t really prove anything either.
Your thread is crabby enough to be PIT material, but I’ll respond anyway. I’ve been in the law enforcement community for the last 20 years. First full time, and now part-time. What cops are denying there are quotas? Where does your rant stem from?
The department I worked for full time, did in fact have quotas. It was no secret. It was stated so in our written policies:
“Officers shall issue violation citations on average of 1 every 17 paid hours to maintain a positive performance review”.
That’s about exactly what the manual said. For some departments quotas can be the best way of determining that an officer is out there doing his job. Especially for “traffic cops”, which is what I was. They’re not out there investigating murders and such (unless one comes along on their beat). They’re out there patroling traffic. Quotas are a good way to insure they don’t find a straw box and sleep the shift away!
A couple of years ago the Wisconsin state legislature passed a law banning police quotas. I know not how it affected the actual number of tickets written.
That’s a lot like what I’d heard, actually. If police aren’t writing stuff up, unfortunately, it’s probably hard to keep track of who is doing his job and who isn’t. The ones with the least visible amount of work done are supposed to be more likely for lesser rewards, I imagine.
Here in Wisconsin it is the law that every department have a written set of policies which include such items like use of force, high speed pursuits, carry of weapons, and so forth. The policy book for the department I work for now is almost 200 pages long.
These policies are a matter of public information and anyone can get a copy of them. I’ve worked for 3 departments in my life, 2 of them had quotas and said so in their written policies.
Some departments don’t use the term “quotas”. They use the term “contacts”. Such as “Each officer shall make at least 3 contacts with the general public per shift”
“Contacts” sounds much nicer than “quota” doesn’t it? Well, if your shift is one which includes riding around on a patrol motorcycle with a radar gun, how do you think those "contacts’ with the public are made? You guessed it!
I can understand folks not liking quotas. Hell, that’s why my state outlawed it. I just don’t know any cops who denied it, that’s all.
Hey, if you work on an assembly line in a factory you’re expected to turn out so many parts per shift, right? It’s kind of the same thing. Hey, on a slow day it’s really easy to just sit in a squad all 8 hours and listen to the ball game. Quotas helped make sure officers were out looking for stuff.
Now wer’re getting somewhere pk. I grew up and spent my first 20 years in Milwaukee before moving here. My question is, what if (and it’s a LOOONG shot) nobody breaks a law? Do the police have to “contact” innocents 3 times apiece?
I never had a problem, nor contacted in 20 years there, here though, the police are genuinely lamenting when they don’t get an arrest.
I suspect it’s because most here take the job to pad the resume so they can get a better paying job elsewhere, admittedly like many others in all professions.
The policy pkbites quoted said that an officer had to average one citation for every seventeen hours working. So if he worked a couple of days and didn’t witness any crimes, this would be balanced by another day when he witnessed five or six.
The other policy said contacts. As pkbites noted, a contact will usually lead to a citation but that isn’t always true. If no one broke the law, an officer could randomly check three drivers’ inspection stickers to see if they were up to date and have his contacts even if all three were legal.
You lived in Milwaukee and you ask “what if no one broke the law”? Hea! Funny!
The law to ban quotas was lobbied by the Troopers Association of Wisconsins State Patrol. I think they used the term “contacts” instead of quotas. I believe they had a heavy burden when it came to contacts, something like 8 a day. When “contacts” actually means “citations”, 8 a day is an awful lot.
As for the department I worked for full time back in the 80’s, I never did find out how they came up with the 17 hours thing. That still bugs me. The department I work for now part-time, not only does not have quotas, they get a little pissy if you go out and write a ton of tickets. It’s not that they don’t want you doing your job, but the jurisdiction is in a tourist location and they don’t want cops “bounty hunting”. So we issue a lot of warnings as well as tickets.
Hea! Funny!