I thought this was common knowledge... every NYC cop I've ever asked has told me frankly that there is a quota, though they mention that its 'not official' or somehow indicated that they weren't supposed to talk about it.

First and foremost, Bloomberg and Ray Kelly have been lying to us about this quota system and that in itself is a serious infraction.

Ray Kelly has to go!

Police officers have enough to deal with without having to adhere to these silly quotas imposed on them. These quotas force officers to "look and find" infractions even if they don't exist. Forcing cops to give a certain amount of tickets or arrest a certain amount of individuals forces them to do so even if they feel that its unwarranted just to remain in good standing on the job. Cops are forced into this "gotcha" situations because of these quotas.

Earlier this year I was in Manhattan and as I momentarily dropped off my son and wife on Second Ave. & the 80's a traffic cop jump in front of my car, I was trying to explain the situation to him but there really was no need because he clearly saw that they were getting out of the car as he zapped my registration. That cost me $115 and the local business money as they just got back in the car and we left, without going to the store. So these "gotcha" operations not only hurt motorists but also small businesses and the NY economy. It also creates animosity towards police officers.

Recently I was talking with an older NYer who reminded me of a time when officers would actually walk into a store and ask if the car outside belonged to anyone and if they could move it before giving a ticket. NYers appreciated that and it created goodwill between the department and civilians. Those were the days (before quotas).

But this is bigger than just traffic tickets because these stats and quotas apply to major crimes too. Cops are being forced to downgrade major crimes so the numbers look good. That's the problem with NYC right now that Bloomberg and Ray Kelly are more worried about these numbers and their image that the reality of what is going on. The reality is that violent crimes are going up at a staggering rate and they seem more preoccupied with sweeping it under the rug than actually doing something about it.

quotas are bee ess because cops lie,

an upper east side precinct cant distribute thousands of petty stop and frisk tickets and disorderlies because the civilians in that hood are not brainwashed into believing that they have no choice but to plead guilty and pay fines and do community service just for breathing in public.

the issue isnt quotas as some vague performance concept, if you read the village coice article its about the petty harasment and ticketing of people not doing anything wrong aka LYING and causing an already disenfranchised population a serious mistrust of govt.

Bad tickets are bad tickets, whether they were written to meet a quota or just out of sheer laziness (or spite). I am always puzzled that cops resort to writing bad tickets. On my ten minute walk home from the subway, I see dozens of infractions that could yield thousands in tickets for the city, if only someone could be bothered to write them up: cars parked in bus stops, at hydrants, double parked cars, illegal vending, dirty sidewalks and on and on. There's plenty of bad behavior out there. The cops shouldn't need the pressure of a quota to do a little enforcement.

Someone please tell me what the big deal is with quotas.

Quotas are an objective measure of productivity (in this case, issuing summonses). Don't critics claim, among other things, that NYPD is lazy? Well, this is the Department's solution. Critics still have a problem with that?

the cops should try and get out of the summons collecting business as soon as is possible.

cops, ideally should be welecomed in communities for providing a sense of safety and stability....

in practice especially with mandatory summons they've become more like tax collectors for the rich...which becomes just another reason (besides their immunity from the same laws they enforce) for people to loathe them.

In the world of quotas...discretion is often ignored.

All the best to Officers Schoolcraft and Polanco.

http://wanderingbrooklyn.wordpress.com/2010/06/19/adrian-schoolcarft-the-new-serpico/

Meh big deal, law enforcement is a job and like any job it expects a level of work and performance from its employees.

Sure, as do most jobs. But "work performance" in many jobs can not accurately be measured by any numbers or statistics, and some statistics can be misleading as a measure of performance.

Are you really confident that a guy who writes five double-parking tickets in a week is doing his job as a cop better than a guy who only writes one?

I would imagine when you're out patrolling for a solid 8 hours a day at least 5 days a week you can pretty easily find 5 double parked cars. If a cop can only find 1 double parked car in a week of working I am pretty confident he is not good at his job

Why is everyone so afraid of quotas? Just don't break the rules and you don't have to worry about it. Look out for number one and get your shit straight.

You never got a summons for something you know you didn`t do.......like let a parking meter expire???

Not one I didn't deserve.

Yeah, I've gotten some ridiculous parking tickets that I had to waste my time knocking down.

Heck, first night as a resident of NYC, I got a "night park commercial vehicle" for leaving the UHaul on a pretty marginal block in Boerum Hill, PLUS a ticket for not having a lock on the back, even though it was empty. I appealed the No Lock ticket by simply saying "whatever the purpose of this law may be, this is certainly not it" and that worked!

And don't get me STARTED on the jackass who visited my car three nights in a row at 2:00 AM to lay on another "crosswalk violation" in the middle of a fucking city parking lot. About $280 worth of fines for something that was not a violation by the furthest stretch of the imagination. (And yes, I read up on the fact that in NYC "crosswalk" doesn't mean what you think it means.)

This nonsense makes me distrust the city government intensely - they simply have an oppositional relationship to the civilian population. They aren't here for us, we are just fodder for them.

"This nonsense makes me distrust the city government intensely"

+1

the city blatently uses summons to raise money without raising taxes....they raised a billion dollars last time I checked. the city that raised the second most was LA with a distant 300 mil.

its an evil way of doing it. misapplying laws to raise money makes a mockery of the whole system...it breeds a hatred of the system itself.

what will it look like when a majority of people hate the system...when they dont trust it..believe in it...care about it?

I wonder.

Why is this a problem if it forces cops to actually do their job?

If you're told you must write five citations for, for example, parking at a bus stop... but the week is coming to an end and you've only seen three cars actually doing it... "ah, that one's close enough."

Because it discourages judgement and discretion. Management isn't saying to target any particular problems in the neighborhood, it's just saying it wants X number of tickets regardless of quality.

So, that means you'll get a ticket while double-parking briefly in front of your building to unload shit while the commercial avenues remain completely unpassable. You get nailed because it's easy and your quality of life doesn't improve in the slightest.

And forget about the possibility that there might be something more important for cops (note, not traffic agents, cops) to be doing.

That said, the quotas mentioned do seem pretty low.

Believe it or not.......some of the Police Force ain`t honest.