Posted on 09/04/2023 3:14:49 PM PDT by CFW
Connecticut’s law enforcement has been rocked by a potential scandal involving how its officers have been reporting traffic stops. An audit exposed a troubling pattern of state troopers manipulating records to make themselves appear to be more productive.
The report reveals that at least 100 officers were fabricating traffic reports to boost their numbers. The revelation has raised questions about the credibility of officers tasked with upholding the law and has led some to question whether they can be trusted to handle more serious criminal cases.
(Excerpt) Read more at redstate.com ...
Some are ex military which have been the ones to use excessive force/violence.
Goodhart’s law at work.
“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”
I think you’re right. I see lots fewer people pulled over, and I don’t think it’s because the general quality and courtesy of driving have improved so much. It seemed to start during the COVID nonsense in 2020.
It also seems that when I do see police activity, they’re swarming a minor incident in ridiculous numbers. Some months ago, apparently there was a domestic dispute at our next-door neighbors’ place, though we didn’t hear sounds of violence or even raised voices. Anyway, no fewer than five sheriff’s vehicles showed up for that. No one was arrested.
The feds give municipalities grant money if they prove 2.2 or greater interactions with law enforcement per year, per person. Thus “show us your papers”.
That could be a real weak spot the defense could take advantage of......but I'm not a lawyer.....never played on on TV..
This seems like a good “Freakanomics” situation.
I disagree. I worked side by side with Deputies (County) and Troopers (State..) the vast majority are straight “shooters” and committed to being in the right. There were a couple of asshats in the mix who would give ME, an Officer, a hard time.
Actually, I can almost guarantee you they fake reported mostly white people to get the percentages up. They were ticketing too many blacks and had to do something to get the number to where they would not end up on the front page news as being racist for pulling over a high percentage of blacks.
They were not targeting blacks, it is just that group breaks more laws than any other group in this country (DOJ stats) but scream that all laws are racist. Almost everywhere I drive in in our country the worst traffic law offenders are black.
I am looking through the details of the audit.
On page 69 they confirm what I suspected:
“a. Overreported records with evidence of false or inaccurate data were more likely to be reported as White drivers and less likely to be reported as Black or Hispanic drivers.
b. Records that were underreported by troopers were more likely to be Hispanic or some other race and less likely to be White.”
The racial part of the false reporting was probably less important to the troopers than inflating the quantity of their reports to get “benefits” like new vehicles, choice of shifts, and promotions.
Jack Webb was a wise man. He also married Julie London. Gave her up to Bobby Troup. Stayed friends..
This is what a collapsing society looks like.
In MBA courses they teach the dangers of any incentives.
Whatever you reward, you will get exactly that.
In most cases it is not the behavior you thought you wanted to reward.
This is very common in sales organizations where the product is “recurring”—ongoing and paid monthly by the customer for example.
If you pay commissions or extra rewards for sales then you get lots of sales but many of them will not be “quality” sales—the customer will take the discount for starting the service and then often drop the service when the discount period is over, for example.
One real life example I had as a manager was where I was rewarded on “new customers” but there was an upper limit. I always made sure to “hit the number” but not get much above it—I saved those extra good prospects for the next incentive period so I could max out the bonus two years in a row.
If management had not set an upper limit I would have tried to get as many customers as I could as soon as I could—which of course would have been better for the company.
Poor pay,
In SoCal, a HS grad can make $150K within a few years as a cop.
Forget it, Jake. It’s Connecticut.
“The ticket reports under scrutiny may have also irrevocably tainted the racial data that the state collects on traffic stops. That is because the motorists who were purportedly stopped were disproportionately white, said Mr. Barone, who is the manager of the Connecticut Racial Profiling Prohibition Project, which seeks to identify and address racial and ethnic disparities in traffic enforcement.”
Interesting tidbit
LOCK EM UP.....fraud
“They were ticketing too many blacks and had to do something to get the number to where they would not end up on the front page news as being racist for pulling over a high percentage of blacks.”
Exactly correct. In addition it was officers in the “tougher” areas of the big cities with high black populations that did the most fakery. The state cops made Interstate stops in those cities.
It’s not clear to me how this worked. If they were actual, but meritless, traffic stops, there would be tickets written, and presumably most people would pay them. But that doesn’t seem to be what was happening. It seems they were inventing traffic stops that never occurred at all.
But if you fake a traffic stop, is there a fake ticket issued? If so, who would pay it? No one. Eventually someone on the force would figure out there were huge numbers of unpaid tickets. Plus you’d have to invent fake license and registration information.
Alternatively, if they faked thousands of stops where there was just a “warning”, no ticket issued, no license or registration info taken, wouldn’t someone on the force get on their case for being too lenient?
The penalties for the blatant fraud appeared to be stuff like two week suspensions—a couple of the cops outsmarted everybody and just “retired”.
They could then “retire” to a warm state and start all over...and even if they could not get hired as a cop they could do private security.
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