If you drive through Hopkinton, RI, keep this in mind: The officers you see are each required to write 20 traffic tickets per month, “more or less,” under a new Police Department policy.

Excuses, like being busy doing something else, or having taken vacation days, “are not acceptable,” Lt. Daniel C. Baruti said in a March 3 internal e-mail that spells out the policy.

Drivers who think they have been ticketed unfairly often suspect that they were cited because of a police quota rather than their driving. The police almost universally deny that quotas exist.

The e-mail says, in bold, italic type, “Do not forward this e-mail.”

Baruti, Police Chief John S. Scuncio and Town Manager William A. DiLibero acknowledged Hopkinton’s policy after The Journal obtained a copy of the e-mail.

However, they denied that it amounts to a ticket quota. Instead, the lieutenant described the numerical goal as a “target.” He said he was surprised that the term “quota” has popped up. “I didn’t even think of the word ‘quota’ ” until a sergeant brought it up, he said.

Baruti and the other local officials said that the policy is a management tool intended to make the police more productive. Although it has drawn some criticism, Baruti said, the policy is legal and that they have no intention of abandoning it.

The practical effect, Baruti said, “is that somebody who offended and might have gotten off, won’t get off and will get a ticket after all.”

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Motorcycle officers in Colorado Springs should each be writing a minimum of 11 tickets a day, and their counterparts in patrol cars should issue at least one, according to internal police documents. But these aren’t quotas, Police Chief Richard Myers said.

During an impromptu media briefing Friday, Myers described them as guidelines that help supervisors keep track of their officers’ job performance while ensuring the Police Department is delivering on its goal of reducing the injuries, deaths and property damage that result from traffic crashes.

“We have more people killed on highways in this city than we do in homicides,” he said. “This is not about revenue.” A form for evaluating motorcycle officers includes the following “performance objective”: “Officers will average a minimum of 2.2 violations” an hour.

Two violations can be written on the same ticket, so the objective asks for at least 11 tickets during a 10-hour shift and up to 22, police said. They are to be issued at the top 25 crash locations in the city, the form says, underscoring Myers’ directive that police “go where the crashes are” in a bid to prevent them.

“I’ve had several guys that write more than several times that,” said Sgt. Steve Weber, a supervisor in the motorcycle unit. “The majority of these guys don’t even have to worry about these numbers. These are really for our low performers.”

Ticket quotas – feared and despised by drivers everywhere – demand that officers meet goals or face mandatory discipline, Myers told reporters. That’s not the case here, he said. Most officers have little problem exceeding the guidelines, and those who fail are excused if they can demonstrate they were busy pursuing calls and other duties, he said. Written and verbal communication, “customer service,” initiative and use of time, teamwork, leadership and problem solving are among other categories considered during an officer’s three annual performance reviews, documents show.

“We look at the total package. That’s the difference,” Myers said.

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Pennsylvania State Troopers receive monetary bounty for writing additional traffic tickets and are punished for speaking out against the system.

Pennsylvania State Police documents show that not only is there a system of monetary reward and punishment for state troopers based upon numeric ticket goals, there is a clear effort to prevent anyone from ever speaking about it. The first rule of a ticket quota is: there is no ticket quota.

The primary reason for the denial is a 1981 Pennsylvania law banning the practice of “directly or indirectly” suggesting that an individual police officer should issue “a certain number of traffic citations.”

In 2002, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette uncovered the creative methods that top police officials developed to avoid the letter of the law. The specific number of tickets that troopers must now meet is known as the “station average.” Each trooper must log the number of traffic stops and citations and if a trooper for any reason issues fewer tickets than his colleagues — the station average — he will be disciplined.

Our investigation shows that the practice continues and that those who issue more than the station average number of traffic tickets are given a fifty percent salary bonus in the form of construction overtime.

“If the station average is five tickets and you write ten, you’re getting overtime,” a trooper who requested anonymity explained to TheNewspaper.com. “The effect is to increase the average.”

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Taped evidence that Cottageville, South Carolina officials threatened to fire a police officer if he refused to generate revenue through traffic tickets.

A Cottageville, South Carolina police officer captured a conversation where the police chief and the mayor threatened to fire him unless he issued more traffic citations to generate revenue. On November 22, 2004, Mayor Bert Reeves and Police Chief Ray Taylor summoned Officer Jeremy Shomber to discuss his “poor performance.” Shomber’s wireless recorder used to document traffic stops had been activate at the time and the entire conversation was recorded. An anonymous source later provided the recording to the Charleston Post and Courier newspaper.

“The main priority right now when you’re driving is generating revenue,” Taylor said on the tape. “That’s in order to pay your position and yours is the lowest position. I’m just being point blank — technically, I’m not supposed to say that.”

Taylor and Reeves emphasized that details of the ticket quota — one ticket per hour — “needs to stay in this small circle.” Shomber, a rookie officer, objected to the idea that he should focus his police efforts solely on writing traffic citations, but Taylor and Reeves insisted that they would fire him if he did not comply.

“I don’t want to go around making people to be angry at me for doing something I shouldn’t be doing,” Shomber pleaded.

“If you’re not writing tickets, you’re not paying for yourself,” Mayor Reeves said. “You got a chip on your shoulder. As far as I’m concerned you’d be fired now. I want someone to play on my team…. If you got canned today, and you had to go out looking you’d come back in a couple months and say you know what, I had it made.”

In March, a Colleton County police officer ticketed Mayor Reeves for driving 103 MPH in a 55 zone. Listen to the exchange in a 2.8mb MP3 format audio file at the source link below.

Source: MP3 of Cottageville Quota Discussion (Cottageville Police, 7/3/2006)