Police Citation ‘Goals’ Give Drivers a Ticket to Writhe

Ensnarled in rush-hour traffic on one of this city’s busiest thoroughfares, the sedan zipped up the shoulder past a few dozen cars. A no-brainer, a slam-dunk ticket, Officer Sean Hart thought as he flipped on the lights in his black-and-white and pulled over the driver.

Hart could have almost predicted the reaction. “I do this all the time without getting a ticket,” the driver told him curtly. “You’re just pulling me over now because you’ve got that quota system.”

“Quota” has become a dirty word in this middle-class suburb of nearly 70,000 people just a high-speed chase down the freeway from San Francisco. Police brass hate the Q-word, but it has become public shorthand for their controversial new practice of establishing minimum numbers of traffic tickets and criminal arrests that officers are expected to log each month.

Aimed at motivating police, the practice has instead pitted them against residents, city leaders and even one another.

“At best, this has been a public relations disaster,” said Redwood City Councilman Richard Claire. “At worst, it’s illegal.”

Drivers are now being pulled over far more often, as demonstrated by a 55% increase in tickets since the policy took effect in August. The public backlash has been furious, forcing officials to scrap one component of the plan: a list of the department’s point “leaders” that had been posted in the station each month to recognize top performers.

Quotas are illegal under the California Vehicle Code, and Redwood City is one of the few police forces in the state to have adopted such an aggressive policy--officially at least. Police here maintain that their practice is not all that different from those used by other agencies who demand productivity from their officers.

What makes Redwood City unique, some experts say, is that police have been honest enough--or, depending on the perspective, foolish enough--to own up to the practice by acknowledging their statistical standards in writing.

In any case, it is an unusual approach that experts say appears to buck a long-standing trend in law enforcement.

Criticism From Experts

Quota-like systems were the norm in many agencies decades ago. But at a time when “community policing” has become a popular catch phrase, more current thinking has it that burdening officers with rigid statistical expectations hurts effective police work.

Formalizing arrest and ticket targets “is a danger,” said Hubert Williams, president of the Police Foundation in Washington, “and it has the potential to undermine public support for the police because people feel that they’re being targeted just so someone can enhance his own performance.”

Police agencies in Los Angeles and elsewhere around the state say that although they track officers’ productivity to ensure they do their fair share on the beat, no statistical goals or requirements are set.

At the California Highway Patrol, for instance, spokesman Kent Milton said supervisors track patrol officers’ production in writing tickets and a wide range of other areas to catch any “dips” in performance. But there are no numbers set for tickets that should be issued in a day, a week or even a year. Other agencies up and down the state say they follow a similar protocol.

Still, many ticket-weary motorists insist that their local department must be using quotas. Occasional controversies, some followed by lawsuits, have broken out in the past in Los Angeles and elsewhere over charges--always denied, and usually unproved--to that effect.

Redwood City police officials acknowledge that their policy, which has stirred significant publicity in recent weeks, has strained community relations. The mere mention of the word “quota,” said Capt. Scott Warner, “confirms people’s worst fears from the time they’re 16 years old.”

Council members who are critical of the practice have threatened to fire city officials, and they in turn have been met with threats of recall. The officers union has voiced its strong reservations.

Warner believes that much of the public backlash is fueled by misunderstanding. The new policy merely formalizes performance measures that are prevalent in many lines of work, he said.

The department had suffered from “a lack of focus” and inattention among some beat officers, Warner said. The new policy aims to reinvigorate the 87 sworn officers on the force, setting what he believes to be more than reasonable goals of about one ticket per shift, or 16 each month, plus seven arrests and 10 field interviews per month. “The bar is real low,” Warner said.

Police officials refer to the numbers as targets, goals and “proactivity” expectations--anything but quotas. Whatever the numbers are called, officers who fail to meet them may have to explain to their sergeants why they fell short for the month, and that could factor into a poor evaluation in an officer’s personnel file.

As a result, said Paul Sheffield of the Redwood City Police Officers Assn., an officer whose beat has been slow now feels pressure at the end of the month to “get his numbers.” Someone caught with a marijuana cigarette, for instance, might have been let off with a warning before, but now is far more likely to be cited on a criminal charge, he said.

“We should be looking at quality versus quantity,” Sheffield said.

But Warner emphasized that meeting the targets will not be the sole criteria for any officer’s evaluation, and no one has been disciplined for falling short.

The city attorney’s office concluded in a Jan. 28 memo that the new policy “does not constitute an illegal ‘arrest quota’ under the California Vehicle Code.” That helped satisfy most City Council members, who held a hearing on the controversy earlier this month and offered their general endorsement.

Councilman Claire, however, said he has lingering concerns because of a new allegation that a veteran officer was told by his supervisor that he stands to lose a seniority bonus if he does not bring his numbers up to snuff. Police officials say that will not happen, but Claire nonetheless has asked the city attorney’s office to reexamine the policy to ensure that police aren’t handing out tickets indiscriminately in response to pressure from management.

“I have to believe the cops are now less tolerant than they were before,” Claire said. “My concern is, I want to make sure these are solid tickets.”

Importance of Traffic Enforcement

When it comes to fighting crime, Redwood City isn’t Los Angeles. Warner will be the first to tell you that.

A Bay Area suburb that is home to some big-name software companies, Redwood City had no murders last year. Gunfire, police brag, has been reduced to “next to nothing” since the city affixed novel sound “sensors” on telephone poles to pinpoint the source of shots. Prostitution was once considered a problem when a handful of hookers hung out near seedy motels. But most are gone now too, Warner said.

“We’re a suburban agency,” Warner said. “We stay busy enough, but we’re not fighting for our lives every night. It’s a nice mix for a cop.”

In that climate, traffic enforcement is considered the No. 1 public concern for the city’s street officers, Warner said. Scofflaws running red lights, zipping through school crosswalks and driving drunk--those are the bad guys that most vex city residents, he said.

And the police are after them.

Although the arrest rate for various crimes has remained essentially the same since the targets were instituted in August, the number of traffic citations has soared and has garnered the bulk of public attention. Officers issued nearly 4,400 tickets in the first six months--a 55% increase over the same period a year before, officials said.

Officers insist that the policy change hasn’t affected the way they police the community. They still issue warnings to some drivers, officers say, and they still use their discretion in deciding whether to hand out a ticket.

“I’m not out here to totally ruin anyone’s day,” said Officer Brad Johnson.

But some officers, Johnson included, have seen a significant increase in their tallies. That suits their supervisors just fine.

Officials cite studies linking the issuance of tickets to a reduction in traffic accidents. Moreover, they say, the types of “fix-it” mechanical defects that account for much of the increase in tickets--a broken taillight or bald tires, for instance--breed accidents.

A Question of Priorities

Drivers may consider many of these citations “ticky-tack,” police acknowledge. “But if a guy’s driving around with a taillight out, that’s a legitimate citation. That’s a good ticket,” said Sgt. Joe Rodrigues.

But is that the best way for police to use their time? Officers’ association president Sheffield isn’t so sure.

“Is writing [broken] headlight tickets all night wrong? No, it’s in the vehicle code,” he said. “But you’re not giving us the freedom to work on the problems in our area, and that’s caused increased morale problems.”

The public backlash hasn’t helped.

“When we stop people now, we get a lot of people saying, ‘Oh, you’re just doing this because you have a quota,’ ” Hart said. The resentment, he said, “has gotten out of hand.”

Some motorists simply driving past a traffic stop have shouted derisive comments to officers about “getting your quotas.” And a few people have told officers snidely to enjoy their pizza--a reference to a now-infamous pizza party at the station in November.

Hart was one of those at the party, along with a few other officers from his shift who were ranked on that month’s leader board, with high point totals for arrests, citations and interviews.

Hart’s sergeant brought in a few pizzas--purchased with his own money, supervisors said--and congratulated the officers for a job well done. Hart said it wasn’t a terribly elaborate affair: Officers had to buy their own sodas from the machine.

But once the incident was publicized, it came to symbolize all that critics said was wrong with the “leader board” concept--the perception, as Warner put it, that “people are just points.”

Hart said the leader board system pitted officer against officer in the drive to tally arrests and tickets, threatening a more unified approach. “Police officers by nature are competitive, so it did breed a little competition. . . . There was a push for your team [on the same shift] to meet all the goals” and make the board, he said.

Warner defends the leader board concept as an effective and well-intended way of recognizing good work. But department supervisors decided last month to scrap that part of the plan.

The targets will remain in effect, however, although supervisors may do some tinkering with the numbers to reflect different shifts and beats.

But the team leader tallies will be better left to the 49ers and the Giants. “After all this furor,” Warner said, “we just decided it was counterproductive.”