Cop Fired for speaking out against ticket and arrest quotas

http://reason.com/reasontv/2013/07/24/how-quotas-pervert-police-priorities-fir ^

[chevydude26]

Auburn, Alabama is home to sprawling plains, Auburn University, and a troubling police force. After the arrival of a new police chief in 2010, the department entered an era of ticket quotas and worse.

“When I first heard about the quotas I was appalled,” says former Auburn police officer Justin Hanners, who claims he and other cops were given directives to hassle, ticket, or arrest specific numbers of residents per shift. “I got into law enforcement to serve and protect, not be a bully.”

Hanners blew the whistle on the department’s tactics and was eventually fired for refusing to comply and keep quiet. He says that each officer was required to make 100 contacts each month, which included tickets, arrests, field interviews, and warnings. This equates to 72,000 contacts a year in a 50,000 person town. His claims are backed up by audio recordings of his superiors he made. The Auburn police department declined requests to be interviewed for this story.

“There are not that many speeders, there are not that many people running red lights to get those numbers, so what [the police] do is they lower their standards,” says Hanners. That led to the department encouraging officers to arrest people that Hanners “didn’t feel like had broken the law.”

[chevydude26]

reminds me of the movie end of watch

[chevydude26]

that is ridiculous and i completely believe it

how do you think a politician would do if they vowed to change the police system currently in place by raising standards for hiring and eliminating quotas and focusing on real crimes?

I think that politician would be pretty popular but the forces in control would do everything in their power to destroy that politician especially police unions

[man_in_tx]

Interesting. Never watched it.... Perhaps, I should.