The symbiotic kinship between police operating budgets and traffic ticket revenue has long been incriminate , but it ’s very rarely spell out out . The fines attached to traffic ticket are suppose to be but punitive , a slap - on - the - wrist penalization fordrivingdangerously and a deterrent to disobey traffic police . However , amercement got steeper , and cities and Ithiel Town discover they liked the money do in , which might have made fines even steeper than before . Then cities start actually depending on slate revenue . As in , calculate on money from traffic tickets to make budgets balance out . And in order for that to work , law want to publish a sure number of dealings ticket .
So although some police force department claim there have never , ever been official or unofficial quota , others admit , yup , this is a thing that in reality happens . In 2013 , the city of Atlanta came up with a plan to bond police wage increases to slate gross . And if the recipient role of a slate pick out to challenge the ticket incourt , and the officer who indite the slate does n’t show up , the ticket is dismissed . police force officers were told that they did not have to increase the number of ticket they indite under this design , but they had to spend more time hanging out in motor hotel to maintain the tickets ( or else of police or engaging in other crime - foreclose police obligation ) . This was spelled out in an email place from the mind of the Atlanta police conjugation to all the union ’s penis , and it might have been the first clip that such an explicit connexion was made public [ source : AOL Autos ] .
When law policeman conceive , or are explicitly told , that their pay and promotion depend on how many ticket are make out , the maneuver can get a small problematic . Some law officer have come ahead to discuss their problems with traffic ticket quotas ; others have in reality been investigate by their own departments for absorb in dishonest or fraudulent ticketing [ author : AOL Autos ] . And it ’s safe to deduce that uncounted others have gotten away with it . This includes practice such as pulling over drivers who have n’t done anything wrong and prove to provoke them for an excuse to write a slate ; actually manipulating or intimidating drivers until they do something unseasonable ; issuing twinned tickets or sending tag to people who are no longer awake ; and straight-out lying . slate quotas change , and quotas that have been leaked or reported on fall in the compass of one per day to 100 per month . In some districts , officers that meet quota are given prizes or bonuses , and officers that do not meet the quota are punished with poor reviews or bad shift schedule .
The in force news is that the drill of ticket quota is under scrutiny , at least in some places . The state of Illinois cast out traffic ticket quotas in 2014 and exchangeable legislation was overstep in Arizona in early 2015 , although the commonwealth ’s regulator blackball the bill [ sources : Smith , Hendley ] .
