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RE: ILLEGAL HIGHWAY PATROL QUOTAS
Dear Editor,
Quotas for the S.C. Highway Patrol (SCHP)? I doubt it. Just how is it that you effectively manage a police officer’s activity anyway? The number of calls they answer? The number of tickets or warnings they write?
There is no harm in asking people to give an account of themselves at work. Otherwise, troopers could ride around listening to their favorite country music station all shift on the taxpayer dime and do no enforcement work at all.
Kudos to SCHP command staff for trying to ensure their people are actually working and earning their paychecks.
Quotas are a preset requirement. Giving account of yourself is not a quota.
And let’s face it, traffic law enforcement in South Carolina is like shooting fish in a barrel. Inactive troopers should probably find another line of work. Even more so if they feel like the pressure of being accountable for themselves is just too much for them.
Regards,
Rob Bogan
St. Matthews, S.C.
“Esse quam videri”
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FROM THE EDITOR…
Rob, Thank you for this response. There’s a lot in your letter with which I concur. No media outlet pushes harder for government efficiency, accountability and transparency than this one – and one reason we do so is to ensure that taxpayers are getting value for their investment.
If people are slacking off – especially as it relates to a core function of government – that’s unacceptable.
The problem with quotas? State law explicitly bans their use by law enforcement agencies – meaning lawmakers either need to amend that code section or SCHP needs to find a new performance-based measuring stick. Either way, it’s a conversation worth having and we’re grateful for your perspective on it.
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6 comments
I think we all understand the concept of quotas in small towns and sparsely populated counties as a grift borne on the backs of citizens. But anyone who drives on I-26 between the three major cities knows that there is no “quota” being enforced along those high- capacity areas. How many times do we have someone blowing by us doing 90+ in a 70 mph zone? Oh, about 10+ times on every single trip. If there was really a hard-pressed, systemic “quota” for ticket production (as opposed as a metric for doing one’s job) then there would be far, far more traffic stops on I-26 than what we see ordinarily.
Quotas encourage bogus, chickenshit cases by putting pressure on Troopers to “produce” tickets. They spend a lot of their time working accidents. If their time is taken up with accident investigations, they may not write the number of tickets that Command Staff desires from their lofty positions in an office. Notice how many stops they make at the end of the month trying to meet quota goals so as not to get an ass-chewing for not meeting standards or lose a chance at that promotion they wanted. I would rather this pressure not be on the Troopers than to be getting stopped over some bs because the end of the month is approaching and their ticket count is low.
A lazy trooper not meeting performance expectations shouldn’t be promoted anyway.
Mr. Rob Bogan wrote a wonderful, common sense letter.
I do feel for SCHP command staff having some lazy weasel in their ranks betray them by sharing the First Sergeants email with the media.
Who says a Trooper is lazy because they are not meeting an unlawful and arbitrary quota? Sounds really dumb to say such. If they spend much of their time investigating accidents, they may not have much time to write tickets.
I have talked to cops at departments that had a neighborhood spokesman or so, whining about “spaeders” (said like it is written) in their neighborhood, “endangering everyone’s lives”. They say almost inevitably, they start running radar intensively. They note few if any “spaeders” in the neighborhood. Frequently, of the few they do catch, among them will be the neighborhood whiner or whiners who made the complaints. The cops said the whiners invariably, on being caught, tell them “…but I’m the one who called you”. The cops response is usually along the lines of, “Then you know we have a problem with speeding in this area. Your court date is…”.
Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it!
I didn’t see anything in the leaked email that meets quota by SC law. What I saw is a poor attempt to get troopers off their tail to stop cars. I stand by my word, the email had some ignorant guidance in it, but troopers are paid to stop cars and should be accountable for it. Like I said before, a much better approach to poor performance would be for command to get out the office, work with the troops, and not tie up the first line supervisors with busy work command can pull themselves.