is there a difference between quota and performance evals?

Question

A rose by any other name is still a rose.

I've reads a lot in the news recently that many police dept require so many tickets per month on average to monitor police performance. does this not coerce a police officer to pull people over to meet the requirements of the dept evaluation process and not necessarily to pull people over for "actual violations committed? " Would such a quota I mean performance ticket writing standard motivate the officer to write more tickets and issue less "warnings" when appropriate?

To the citizen who is wantonly pulled over and written a ticket for a warning worthy violation to help the officer meet performance standards at the end of the month, this is inexcusable. The impact on citizens for such department driven coercion is millions of dollars a year in ticket fines and increase car insurance premiums. Many jobs require a clean driving record so such activity could prevent a person from getting a job. So yes this is a reasonable and valid question.

Answer 1

A quota is a specific number. A performance standard is not a specfic number, it is a comparison to other officers working a similar shift. That is why performance standards are allowed.



If an officer is writing questionable tickets, then that is because he is lazy, not because he has a quota. All you have to do is pay attention to how many violations you observe next time you are driving around and you will see there is at least one person worthy of a ticket.

Answer 2

Just a couple of thoughts here.



A performance evaluation would take into account much more than "# of tickets written" the supervisors would probably rate using a much better standard "conviction percentage: traffic law enforcement". The officer that writes tickets that get thrown out of court is not doing a good job, in fact they are probably causing the shift supervisor more work answering to their bosses over citizen complaints.



A violation that is "warning worthy" is also "ticket worthy" ... so what's the difference? I've had blown lights on my car, one officer gives me a warning the next morning I might get a ticket for the violation from another officer ... both would be technically correct, but the officer that gives me a warning is being a lot nicer.



The performance review would also take into account more than traffic enforcement. Response times to calls, additional training received, special assignments, etc.



I doubt any department rates officers using just number of tickets written as a standard, although that is the most visible part of their job to most citizens ... an officer's job is much more than traffic enforcement.

Answer 3

name one dept with ticket quotas