The ongoing ticket-writing slowdown by fedup NYPD cops has become so costly to the city that a top police commander seems to have resorted to using a dreaded word in policing: quota.
Furious that so many cops are pocketing their summons books, the NYPD’s chief of transportation asked a commander at a recent meeting if his cops had written 15 summonses for the month, police sources said.
Police brass deny imposing quotas on the ranks, preferring to call them “productivity goals,” sources said.
But with pressure mounting as the slowdown costs the city almost a million dollars a week in summons revenue, three-star chief James Tuller’s motivation was clear: Stop the slowdown.
With a ticket-fixing scandal looming over the department, the slowdown is a reaction among the rank and file to the bosses’ efforts to ensure that all tickets are on the up and up, the sources said.
The Internal Affairs Bureau is closely examining tickets for accuracy, fining cops 10 vacation days if problems arise with a summons. The penalty was later reduced and a sliding scale instituted – but the summons numbers are still in the subbasement, with brass desperate to stop it.
“IAB has been cracking down at Traffic Court even harder,” a source said, noting beat cops have been responding predictably: “It’s gotten worse.”
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Summonses for moving violations, such as for running red lights, cell phone use and not wearing a seat belt, plummeted 44% citywide for the week ending Sept. 11 compared with last year.
Summonses for the previous 28 days were down 36.3% citywide compared with the same period last year, NYPD stats show.
(Source: NY Daily News)
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One Response
I am no fan of getting a ticket, to penalize a cop for making an error on a ticket with loss of time off, maybe the brass should look at themselves and see how they would feel if the shoe is on the other foot.
Once governments realized the income potential for tickets they found more ways to issue them. The “unofficial” policy of “fixing” tickets has been around since tickets were first given out. Its all about PR and not about the truth.
To the brass if you want tickets written find a better way to reduce errors that are not so harsh, perhaps retraining or a written warning.
But most of all get off the backs of those that are on the beat trying to protect us from terrorists and other bad guys