Ticket quotas are commonly defined as any establishment of a predetermined or specified number of traffic citations an officer must issue in a specified time. Some police departments may set "productivity goals" but deny specific quotas. In many places, such as California, Texas, and Florida, traffic ticket quotas are specifically prohibited by law or illegal.

United States

One common way of preventing traffic ticket quotas includes statutorily regulating the distribution of ticket fine revenue, to prevent it going straight back to the law enforcement agency which issued the tickets; thus eliminating any direct monetary incentive to issue tickets.

Florida

Florida law distributes traffic ticket fine monies by small percentages or amounts to several separate funds preventing it from going back to the agency which issued the ticket. Some of these different funds include the overall governmental entities' general revenue fund, Child Welfare Training Trust Fund, Juvenile Justice Training Trust Fund, Brain and Spinal Cord Injury Trust Fund, Indigent Criminal Defense Trust Fund, Emergency Medical Services Trust Fund, Law Enforcement Radio System Trust Fund, Vocational Rehabilitation of the Department of Education, Division of Blind Services, Epilepsy Services Trust Fund, and Nongame Wildlife Trust Fund.

Use by NYPD

Officially, the

New York City Police Department The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest i ...

(NYPD) denies using quotas in policing. In 2015, NYPD Commissioner William Bratton stated: "There are no quotas, if you will." However, some officers dispute this, and describe being put under pressure to meet a specific number of tickets/arrests per month. According to former officer Adhyl Polanco, NYPD officers are expected to bring in "20 and one" per month, referring to 20 tickets and 1 arrest.

Al O'Leary AL, Al, Ål or al may stand for: Arts and entertainment Fictional characters * Al (''Aladdin'') or Aladdin, the main character in Disney's ''Aladdin'' media * Al (''EastEnders''), a minor character in the British soap opera * Al (''Fullmetal ...

, a spokesman for the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, behi ...

says: "Such quotas put the cops under pressure to write summonses when the violations don't exist ... It takes discretion away from the police officer.

Netherlands

The national quota system for issuing tickets was previously scrapped from police performance contracts, but individual forces may still impose their own quota system. In 2009 Guusje ter Horst told Members of the

States General of the Netherlands The States General of the Netherlands ( nl, Staten-Generaal ) is the supreme bicameral legislature of the Netherlands consisting of the Senate () and the House of Representatives (). Both chambers meet at the Binnenhof in The Hague. The States ...

(parliament) that the justice ministry had agreed that the police should raise €831m through fines.

References

Quotas Law enforcement Ethically disputed judicial practices African-American-related controversies Race-related controversies in the United States Law enforcement in the United States Law enforcement techniques Traffic law Police misconduct Police corruption {{law-enforcement-stub