Gary, IND- The police admit to having ticket quota's and claim they want to increase productivity.
Gary, IND- Motorists driving on Gary streets should be on extra alert: Traffic cops are under orders to issue tickets more than once an hour, every day all day.
Claiming they want to increase productivity, Gary police administrators ordered traffic officers to write at least 10 tickets per shift.
But prosecutors, defense attorneys and the Fraternal Order of Police say quotas can have a negative impact on public perception, police morale and convictions on all levels.
“It’s not good for us,” Lake County Prosecutor Bernard Carter said last week.
“I try to talk to police all the time, tell them to be sensitive to members of the public, use some discretion. Setting a strict requirement removes some of that discretion,” Carter said.
Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 61 President Del Stout agreed.
“Instituting quotas not only diminishes an officer’s discretionary power, it can create an unnecessary financial hardship on citizens,” he said.
Cmdr. Timothy Tatum said he issued the order requiring at least 10 citations a day from each officer assigned to the traffic division. “That is the standard I set to increase productivity,” he said through police spokesman Lt. Samuel Roberts.
Robert Harper, well-known Porter County defense attorney, said quotas help lawyers challenge the validity of the officer’s action.
“Any intentional bias can be brought out,” he said. “The officer has an interest in keeping his job, so he writes more tickets to meet his quota.”
Harper said defense lawyers might challenge the ticket by comparing an officer’s statistics. “If they have been averaging 50 a month, then all of a sudden they’re writing 200, that’s a basis to challenge the action.”
And when a questionable traffic stop results in an arrest for more serious charges, defense attorneys can present legal arguments that could result in the entire case being dismissed, he explained.
Carter said he’d rather see police make more traffic stops to talk to drivers about what they did wrong, or issue a warning instead of a ticket.
Link:
http://posttrib.suntimes.com/news/5609538-417/gary-police-traffic-ticket-quota-blasted.html