Do police officers have quotas for tickets or arrests? If so, what is the quota number?
I just want to know once and for all.
Dear Ask A Cop,
Do police officers have quotas for tickets or arrests? If so, what is the quota number? I have heard so much about this issue, back and forth, and I just want to know once and for all.
Paysley L. in Moody, TX.
Dear Paysley,
Section 720.002 of the Texas Transportation Code expressly forbids Texas municipalities from establishing or enforcing any sort of traffic ticket quota system. Specifically, Section 720.002 states that a municipality cannot “evaluate, promote, compensate, or discipline” a law enforcement officer or judge based on the number of traffic citations written or fines imposed.
So, is it against the law for police officers to have, or be forced to work under, a ticket quota? The answer is… Absolutely.
One thing that people do not understand is that if you want to piss off a cop quick, fast, and in a hurry, just tell him/her they have to write a certain number of tickets! They will trip all over each other, racing to get to a phone to call their TMPA Attorney!
Out there in the wonderful world of law enforcement, there are some cops who LOVE to write tickets, I used to work with a couple of them, but even those officers will not tolerate being told that they must write a certain number of them. COPS DO NOT TOLERATE TICKET QUOTAS!
Does that mean that there are no intelligence-challenged individuals in leadership positions that will try to enforce a quota system? Absolutely not!
Let’s talk about Mr. Alan Grindstaff.
Mr. Grindstaff was the city manager of the fine Texas City of Marlin back in 2019. Brother Grindstaff decided it would be proper if he decided to “evaluate, promote, compensate or discipline” the Police Chief based on the number of citations he issued. Yeah, that didn’t work out too well for him.
Here is a news story about it from KWTX News:
Ex-Marlin City Manager Alan Grindstaff was arrested Wednesday after he was indicted for abuse of official capacity following a Texas Ranger’s investigation into an alleged plan to offset a budget shortfall with revenue from traffic tickets.
Grindstaff remained jailed in lieu of a $15,000 bond. Officials said he would go before a judge Thursday. The offense is a Class A misdemeanor.
Grindstaff violated the law by “requiring or suggesting to” Marlin’s police chief, Nathan Sodek, in early February “that his department was required to or expected to issue a predetermined or specified number of any type or combination of traffic citations within a specified period,” and by “establishing or maintaining, formally or informally, a plan to evaluate, promote, compensate or discipline” Sodek “ based on the issuance of those citations, according to an indictment handed up on Monday.
While it's illegal to create traffic ticket quotas, municipalities are allowed to estimate the amount of money its court anticipates will be collected in a budget year, according to the traffic section of the Texas Penal Code.
Grindstaff had estimated that police needed to write about 500 tickets a month in order to generate $700,000 in revenue for the city.
In January he told the council that while the city was on pace to double the more than $250,000 in ticket revenue from the previous fiscal year, but not to generate the $700,000.
He revised the estimate to $517,000, telling the council then, “We will make that money, from what the chief tells me.”
Just for fun, let’s do one more!
Let’s talk about Rosena Becker-Ross, the city administrator for the City of Mount Enterprise, Texas, back in 2019. (2019 must have been a rough year for ticket quota fans!)
Becker-Ross handled her business a little differently from Mr. Grindstaff. Where Grindstaff merely had conversations with the Police Chief about required quotas, Becker-Ross was just a regular bitch.
She hounded her City Marshal with emails, text messages, and phone messages threatening his job and cutting his employee’s salaries. She harassed the City Marshal non-stop, telling him, “If you don’t get tickets up you ain’t going to be City Marshall, do you hear me?” Like I said…..a regular bitch.
So, she was found guilty on three counts of Abuse of Official Capacity and was sentenced to probation (of course). The funny part of this situation is that she had an ex-state trooper as a council member, and when she saw how much money was going into the budget just from traffic citations, she started digging! That is when Becker-Ross’s world started falling apart around her.
Now, I would be remiss if I didn’t clarify a part of the “quota issue” that came up many times during my career as a Captain.
Officers CANNOT legally be ordered to issue a certain number of citations or make a certain number of arrests during a specific time period….Officers CAN be ordered to make a certain number of contacts during a certain time period.
Contacts include just what it says….making any kind of contact with people. Contacts can be traffic stops, or stopping and talking to someone walking up the street, or meeting with someone at the station.
There are many people who argue that requiring officers to make a certain number of contacts is just as bad as a ticket quota. However, this is total bullshit. It is an officer’s job to interact with the public…PERIOD. For those who want to argue this point, answer a simple question….
Can police officers do their job; however YOU want to describe their job, if they do not make contact with the public? The answer is unequivocally NO, they can not.
Law enforcement leaders MUST be able to require a certain amount of activity; otherwise, all the lazy, worthless cops would never leave the station!
Okay, let’s review…
Ticket quotas ARE ILLEGAL.
There are still a very small number of dumbasses who will still try and enact quotas, but they soon go to jail.
Cops HATE ticket quotas and will report you to the state if you so much as spell the word out.
Law enforcement CONTACT quotas are completely legal and serve a purpose.
Thank you, Paysley, for your question and for subscribing to my Ask A Cop Substack!
AAC
That’s exactly what I thought.
Spot on! Well written